FEATURE PHOTO: BY TIAGO RODRIGUES

The two taxes you NEED to know about and how to avoid it

Municipal Empty Homes Tax

What it is

A tax designed by the government to prevent people from price fixing and inflating the rental market to an unreasonable price.

What it means to you as a homeowner

 

 

PRO TIP

As of February 4, 2019, you should have already made your declaration. If you haven’t be sure to declare as soon as possible – you will have to pay a $250 fine (which is still a much better rate than 1% of your property value!)

 

Provincial Speculation + Vacancy Tax

What it is

A tax designed by the BC government to reduce unreasonably low vacancy rates + driving housing prices to unreasonable/unaffordable prices.

What it means to you as a homeowner:

 

PRO TIP

All declarations for this tax are due March 31, 2019, payment is due July 2, 2019.

For the 2019 tax year (this year!) and beyond, there are some important changes to note:

You must rent out your home for 6 or more months instead of 3 months in order to be exempt from the tax.

Foreign owners and satellite families (A satellite family is an individual or spousal unit where the majority of their total worldwide income for the year is not reported on a Canadian tax return) must pay 2% of assessed property value instead of just 0.5%

 

How to avoid these taxes in 3 easy steps

1- List your unit on liv.rent

 

2- Find credible, credit-checked tenants through liv.rent.

3-Rent out your unit by creating + signing a digital contract.

Benefits to listing with liv.rent

• All tenants are credit-checked
• Everything can be done within the app from chatting with possible tenants to scheduling viewings to signing contracts.
• Rental contracts are easily exported/downloaded/printed to be used as evidence in your tax declarations.
• They have a Chinese version for their website!

It’s already March, so download the liv.rent app and list your unit.

Follow and contact liv.rent on WeChat for more information
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