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CMHC spending a quarter-million on federal home equity tax research

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The Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation is shelling out $250,000 to UBC’s School of Population to research the first-ever federal home equity tax, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

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“The objective is to identify solutions that could level the playing field between renters and owners,” said CMHC spokesperson Audrey-Anne Coulombe.

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It’s being called the first CMHC-sponsored project via cabinet’s National Housing Strategy.

Canadian homeowners currently don’t pay tax when they sell their primary residence.

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The UBC project Generation Squeeze complained “many Canadians bank on profits from home ownership to secure their financial future and gain wealth. This bound us to a catch-22: The more we made home ownership profitable, the more we made housing unaffordable. If we want a future where all Canadians can afford a good home, including our kids and grandkids, we must unravel this pre-existing catch-22. We need to make it so that no Canadian relies on gains in housing wealth to feel secure, and we need to rethink policies that by encouraging the financialization of housing push the cost to buy or rent a home even further out of reach.”

It’s estimated a national home sales tax would raise at least $6 billion a year for the federal treasury.

In a 2019 report, UBC researchers called homeowners lottery winners with an unfair tax advantage.

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