Canada’s real estate sector is collecting billions in profit while incentivizing landlords to evict tenants and keep driving up rents
    • Sturgist
      5·
      4 days ago

      Vancouver/BC tried the empty house tax. T’fuck… Literally drops in the bucket…

  • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
    21·
    4 days ago

    We can’t tax the rich, that is anti oligarch/anti monopoly policy. Won’t anyone think of the shareholders? They have 4th homes to buy and a 2nd cottages in their sights, now with parking for 2 yachts.

  • frankyboi
    12·
    2 days ago

    If you taxes the rich they will leave and stop investing. That’s how countries become poor. You plebeians needs the riches because they are smarter than you and creates wealth.

    • Someone
      2·
      23 hours ago

      If these “richies” were actually investing their money in making the country better, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  • Linktank@lemmy.today
    3·
    3 days ago

    “taxing” when there is a crisis is asinine. Take from those who have too much and GIVE to those who are in desperate need. Fuck this shit.

  • streetfestivalOPEnglish
    5·
    4 days ago

    Great article. “Financialization” is a word that should be more popular. When news media and rental properties become investment vehicles, the public suffers.

    In 2023, rents increased by eight per cent while wages grew by only five per cent. At the same time, the real estate sector collected $50.4 billion in profits in 2023 — a staggering 40 per cent higher than its pre-pandemic record.

    Much of these wildly outsized real estate profits are being generated through corporations and financial firms. These firms own 20 to 30 per cent of purpose-built rental housing and are the majority purchasers of multi-family dwellings in Canada. In particular, real estate investment trusts (REITs) have grown to two-thirds of all real estate assets traded on the TSX.

    Similar to hedge funds, REITs are trusts that must hold the majority of their assets in real estate and distribute most of their profits to investors each year. Over the past few decades, REITs have become a significant presence in the rental market. They’ve gone from owning zero rentals in Canada in 1996 to nearly 200,000 units today.

    One key reason that REITs are so popular: their income is distributed to investors tax-free. In 2022, $100 million collected by the largest seven residential REITs was distributed to investors, exempt from taxation through the partial inclusion of capital gains. While the capital gains loophole was lowered in 2024, it still results in a sizeable tax break.

    REIT profits must be taxed

    Despite experts pushing relentlessly for the federal government to take action, the finance department quietly posted that “no changes to the tax treatment of REITs are being considered at this time” on their website in May 2024, leaving renters at the mercy of financial firms.