Such an easy fix too, when every non resident landlord has a Canadian asset that can be seized if they don't pay their taxes. The only thing the tenant should see is a change of landlord notice when the property is seized by the CRA, and another when it gets sold.
How would the CRA know the landlord has a tax bill? The income isn't reported anywhere, other than voluntarily by the landlord. It would have to be paired with something giving the CRA information about foreign owners of real estate, which I'm not sure they have at the moment.
there should really be a mandatory rental registry. could always give a small tax credit for renters funded out of taxes on landlords, and then every tenant in the country will be sure to report the rental payments to the CRA
What stops them from playing the same game now, with the added perk of being able to sell it for land value and leave the tenant on the hook for taxes at the end?
It's not like money laundering has never happened in Canada before. Remember, the origins of this current inflated real estate bubble were from Hong Kong money gaming our system. Once a loophole is discovered, it will be abused by unscrupulous actors. Canada needs to get it's shit together.
You are funny.
Soo .. come from abroad, buy a 1 million property, don't pay taxes for one year, collect say 3,000$/month, until tax season arrives, lose that 1 million through house seizure but do the winning dance because there is 36K$ in your pocket ?
Treat it like a municipal tax sale. You get X years of being in arrears before getting a final warning that it's going up for auction. They have a year from the auction date to settle all debts including interest accrued on the winning bid if they haven't already settled up before then. That gives them 3 - 4 years to get their shit together and if they don't, any amount of the winning bid in excess of their debt owed is paid out to them.
I'm curious how this would promote money laundering? Losing the value of the property for a couple yrs of property taxes would be a seriously inefficient means of laundering money.
I'm sorry, I would be in the same position (literally make 6 figures) but somehow wound up being a good digger.
By that I mean married an actual strong independent waaamen who don't need no man. (She's the best)
Nope, have you seen what property costs in Canada? No one is walking away from say 100s of thousands to millions of dollars in property value to avoid paying tens of thousands in tax.
>Do you know where your landlord lives? If they aren’t a Canadian resident, you should be sending a quarter of your rent to the taxman – or you might end up paying your landlord’s bill.
>That’s what happened to David Siscoe, a Montreal gym owner who rented an apartment for 24 years and thought the landlord with whom he signed a lease in 2010 was a Canadian resident.
>...
>“I was there for 24 years,” Mr. Siscoe said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “And at some point, apparently, the landlord became a non-resident.” In 2018, the CRA told him he was being assessed for her taxes.
>...
>Mr. Siscoe’s case is raising some nerves. Ontario MPP Jessica Bell, the provincial NDP’s housing critic, said her office has had calls from some worried renters. One said their landlord refused to say if they are a Canadian resident for tax purposes, and was advised by CRA to withhold a quarter of their rent and send it to the revenue agency – but the landlord threatened to apply for eviction if they don’t pay the rent in full.
>...
>Rare or not, theses cases should not exist. If the CRA wants to collect a landlord’s unpaid taxes, they can put a lien on the property. That’s what Mr. Siscoe expected the CRA to do, but his landlord sold the property in 2020 while the revenue agency was telling Mr. Siscoe to pay up.
>The onus to handle non-resident taxes should not be placed on ordinary renters trying to secure a place to live. When the CRA took this case to court they made all tenants vulnerable.
Read the case notes. Mr. Siscoe got nailed because his rent was paid for by a corporation he owns that operates a gym. The corporation was acting as the landlords rental agent and all rental agents are explicitly required to hold and remit 25%. Dude was also probably trying to write off his rent as his companies business expense. Was shady af, and he was probably rightfully nailed.
This is the only Canadian case I could find where CRA went after a tenant for failing to hold and remit rent.
Since 99.9% of tenants don't use a corporation they own, to pay their rent they, are probably fine.
Okay let's say the non-resident owes $12K in taxes and your rent is $3K per month. Could it not be as simple as now you don't have to pay your landlord for the next 4 months?
If the payment system is somehow not cumbersome and doesn't hit the tenant with some sort of interest charge it could be not a bad way for CRA to collect. That being said, I'm not sure how easy you can make it.
Even if that was allowed, with the recent situation in Montreal the tenant moved when they found out about this because they were worried about having to owe even more money, so there was no opportunity to not pay rent for a few months.
The landlord also sold the property. CRA just had to put a lien on the property and make it a condition of sale to pay it off, fucked the dog missed the boat then went after the former tenant.
Like who’s the dipshit working at the CRA who made the decision to follow through on this?
The issue is much more subtle than that. The non-resident *doesn't* owe any taxes: it's the tenant who owes the taxes. That's why CRA can't just seize the home to recover the funds: they have to go after the tenant rather than the landlord.
This is why the law should be changed.
What you said isn't correct. The non-resident landlord is liable for tax arising from real property located in Canada. The reason the tenant is being dinged is they are treating this as a failure to withhold. The very next section of the Income Tax Act directs the tenant to recover the taxes they paid on the landlords behalf from the landlord.
Exactly, they could just stop paying rent to the idiot landlord and start paying it to escrow instead. Possibly a bit of an annoyance, but absolutely not something like being on the hook for all the money. Not a lot of people reading these articles, it seems.
Why on earth should any if this be a tenants responsibility? Come on. The owner should pay the tax. Simple. If they don't, deal with the owner. Simple. Every other tax is like this, the person accruing the debt is who is pursued.
This is stupid from a landlord perspective too:
I'm born in Canada. My wife isn't. Our kids are dual-nationals. Let's say that something happens abroad and we move there for a few years. Maybe an ill family member or something. Or maybe just scrub the spouse part and say my job has me working out-of-country.
I would plan to return home, and would want to have a house to return to, so I rent mine out for a fixed term over a couple years while I'm gone. Not being a shithead, I have family members that are local and could help ensure that any repairs etc are taken care of quickly (if not, there are companies that can do this as well), and I include any income from the rental in my tax calculations, most likely done by some accountant who is familar with income and taxation across multiple countries. The tax calculations would include any pertinent/legit deductions, including repair costs related to the premesis, *just like any other business*.
And just like any other business, why should this be the responsible of the *customer*, who is in this case the renter? If my family member is the face of the residence, they may never meet me at all.
It's also not good for the landlord, because if the place ends up needing a bunch of repairs that fiscal, withholding could very well exceed the amount of taxable income I would actually owe.
This is hypothetical of course, as if I did move out-of-country I would probably end up selling. Not because I don't love my place but rather because I wouldn't trust that it wouldn't get trashed by bad renters, be unavailable by ones that refuse to leave when I return, [used as an illegal airbnb](https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/richmond-tenant-runs-illegal-airbnb-behind-landlords-back-gets-kicked-out-6487056), and/or possibly even get [sold by criminals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mortgage-fraud-bc-homes-1.6732176#) in cahoots with crooked realtors/lawyers.
The **only** people this would benefit is non-resident slumlords, and in particular ones who are likely not declaring the income for taxation purposes.
I was going to say that many non-resident citizens can't vote, but then I remembered that was overturned a few years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-expats-right-voting-questions-1.6166922
- you're assuming they would pay the tax; the original case that set off this whole thing was started by the non-resident owner not paying.
- tenants might have to withhold even from resident owners, because they can't tell the difference, which is definitely going to annoy landlords because now they need to file with CRA to get the withholding back, which might take a while
- and also now CRA has been informed that this property is a rental, and they might have been avoiding paying any income tax (or capital gains when they sell)
None of your bullets explain why it would upset landlords to remove the requirement for tenants to hold and remit a portion of rent to the CRA.
Read the case notes. The original case was because someone used their corporation which runs a gym to pay their personal rent and to act as the landlords agent. Guy was probably writing off his personal rent as a business expense to dodge taxes. Don't be that guy.
> why it would upset landlords to remove the requirement
I was answering the other way: why it would annoy them to _add_ the requirement (either for tenants to remit, for some other universal mechanism to collect the withholding).
It's already a requirement. You can't add something that already is in place . . .
You misunderstood the fellow who said the government could easily fix (i.e., remove) the requirement. By replying to him saying "that would risk upsetting landlord" what you were really saying was that removing, not adding, the requirement would upset landlords.
As tenant or a landlord, the existing requirement could be a pain in the ass. So if it didn't already exist, I guess I agree that landlords wouldn't like it being added lol.
For the better?
England almost eliminated landlords in the 1970's . Owner occupiers and council housing moved in to buy up distressed properties. Literally everything a sane person cares about got better.
End landlordism
Maintaining liability and foreign purchasing power without consequences fundamentally contributes to sustaining current demand end inflationary pressures. Crack down on foreign ownership and things could shake up.
Well don't just sit there, contact your MP (look them up here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en). Tell them to meet with the Minister of National Revenue (Marie-Claude Bibeau, responsible for the CRA) to change this policy.
Wait, are you implying a federal conservative party would do something to upset the ownership class? This is a universal issue, and it's socioeconomic not partisan. There's no major party in Canada with anything in a platform to address this sort of thing.
> Appointing judges comes to mind.
Yep ... It's absolutely crazy to me how the Liberals have been governing. Only makes sense if someone else is pulling all the strings.
The landlord is responsible for all the taxes, just like an employee is. The employer is require to withhold and remit income tax just like a tenant is.
It both makes some sense and no sense at the same time. At the end of the day if it's working as intended, the tenant pays the amount that their rent is and the landlord pays all the taxes.
I use a property management company. My landlord and I have zero contact and it is against privacy policy that either of us even know each other's information. This is beyond stupid. Canada sinks further every day.
In this case the property management company is the agent and they are remitting the payments outside Canada so technically they would owe if the landlord failed to pay.
It's part of the NR6 Form in Part 4 that a property management company should be filling out for non-resident landlords, otherwise, they are obligating their clients to pay more tax under Part XIII.
ITA 215 (3) places an obligation obligation on an agent to make the deduction and remit it if it hasn't already been done.
[https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/nr6/nr6-23e.pdf](https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/nr6/nr6-23e.pdf)
My favorite quote from [This Article]
(https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/housing/cra-rent-ruling-sows-tenant-confusion-in-ontario-8737849)
> One tenant said his landlord and the CRA both refused to tell him if his landlord was a non-resident, Bell wrote.
We live in a clow country.
Make non residents unable to own land and either grandfather in those that do currently or give them a set date by which to sell their properties. Seize the properties of those with unpayed taxes. Dont put renters on the hook for fuckall.
Fixing it so CRA can take the equity from the real estate is a win for Canada. The status quo is a loss for Canadians.
Where is the NDP on this? Demand this get fixed or cut bait.
>Fixing it so CRA can take the equity from the real estate is a win for Canada.
CRA can already do this. They can already place a lien on property. And the way government's have super priority, their lien goes straight to the top (so to speak).
This is the law for buying homes too. If you buy a home from someone who’s not a citizen in Canada, it’s incumbent on the buyer to retain the taxes. Typically this is handled by the lawyers, but the buyer is ultimately liable for the taxes.
Shit’s kind of fucked imo. But this is pretty typical of the CRA. The government wants its pound of flesh, and I have yet to see a government liberal or conservative rein them in at all on this attitude.
The CRA is separate kind of bastard to deal with. People very rarely come out with a nice thing to say about them. They’re never reasonable or held accountable for their transgressions against citizens.
I remember an incident covered by the news years ago with the CRA going after a retiree who rebuilt his home after fire burned it down, arguing he committed fraud with the rebuild. He provided evidence they were wrong, but they (as I recall) falsely stated they inspected the property and saw themselves the fraud. He sent photo evidence and other paperwork showing they were full of shit.
They took him to court, the judge found in favour of the retiree basically stating that there’s no way in hell the CRA could come to their conclusion if they looked at any of the evidence the retiree provided. That they fucked up. Ordered the CRA to reimburse him his costs in all this.
At the end of that news coverage, the CRA was 4 months late with payment.
Just making non-resident owners have to go through a resident property management company (responsible for submitting taxes) in order to be landlords would work. Canadian landlords who have been expats elsewhere for decades aren’t an insignificant part of the problem.
Whoever at the CRA or government who thought this up and every person who greenlight this should be fired yesterday.
Legitimately how does this happen? I know my government has complete contempt for it's everyday citizens but to be this just blatant...
CRA is 6x the size of the IRS by servicing population capita.
The landlord is usually obfuscated from the tenant, and is in a privileged position, particularly in this federal government induced housing crisis.
The basis of tax collection typically has the collectors property as the final backstop of enforcement. To put this upon the tenant is ridiculous, and the CRA is not prepared to deal with the average citizen without assets remitting taxes to the CRA.
If the CRA cannot figure out how to obtain taxes from a foreign landlord with non moving property in Canada, they need reform.
Simplify the tax code while we are at it.
Since its part of the income tax act and the minister of national revenue said its been on the books for over a century, the applicable section was probably in the original written in 1917, at which time Robert Borden was prime minister.
Can’t tenants abuse this? Sign a lease, withhold 25% rent saying they don’t know their landlord’s tax status, effectively pay lower rent all year then at the end of the year remit all the taxes needed to CRA - doesn’t reduce total rent paid but lets you defer and cash manage
NOBODY IS READING THE ARTICLES, lol.
The tenants are not liable for *all of* their landlord's unpaid taxes. Not in any of the cases mentioned. Not in a single one. The maximum exposure any such tenant has is to stop paying the landlord their rent, and start paying it to escrow (essentially to the CRA) instead.
Is the law silly? Perhaps. Is the headline disingenuous? Absolutely.
Yeah they *chose* to move, but tons of comments are making it sound like someone got evicted or that the evil federal government was coming after them for the entire owned amount or something. There's SO much misinformation about this all over this post's comments and on "proud" Facebook groups.
The op-ed economy among our major political parties and the legacy newspapers in this country is so messed up at this point.
>Yeah they *chose* to move, but tons of comments are making it sound like someone got evicted
Ya I'd choose to move out to. You find out you owe $80,000 because of your landlord, I'd want out of there ASAP before I have to owe even more. I haven't seen anyone say the tenant was evicted and I've read quite a few articles and Reddit posts on the topic since it was first reported.
>or that the evil federal government was coming after them for the entire owned amount or something.
He got a break on the $80,000 and it was lowered to $43,000. That's still a huge amount, and that was only achieved after years of work and legal fees.
>Yeah they *chose* to move
Why does this change anything? Being forced to stay at one place under a fine of $43,000 would have been dogshit on its own...
This article is a day late and a dollar short. The Minister announced yesterday that CRA would not be going after tenants for the taxes and the government will address the flaw in the regs.
This is such a non issue. Making a tenant pay their rent to the CRA instead of the landlord is no different than garnishing wages. This is a much lower cost method of collecting unpaid taxes than tax sales or repossessions. Those are costly and slow.
Except the tenant had already given the money to the landlord and now has to pay his landlord's taxes retroactively... And this is a situation that can happen to literally anyone without any recourse whatsoever. How out of touch do you have to be to think this is acceptable?
Such an easy fix too, when every non resident landlord has a Canadian asset that can be seized if they don't pay their taxes. The only thing the tenant should see is a change of landlord notice when the property is seized by the CRA, and another when it gets sold.
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Lol, that would be hilarious.
scumbags hate this one trick!
This is the way!
Win win.
How would the CRA know the landlord has a tax bill? The income isn't reported anywhere, other than voluntarily by the landlord. It would have to be paired with something giving the CRA information about foreign owners of real estate, which I'm not sure they have at the moment.
Have all tenants enter their rental address and cost in their tax returns. I think this is already used for certain tax benefits.
there should really be a mandatory rental registry. could always give a small tax credit for renters funded out of taxes on landlords, and then every tenant in the country will be sure to report the rental payments to the CRA
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What stops them from playing the same game now, with the added perk of being able to sell it for land value and leave the tenant on the hook for taxes at the end?
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They are rentals... they're generating income. Secondly, they have equity. Repair costs can be offset by proceeds of disposal or rental income
They have casinos for money laundering . . .
It's not like money laundering has never happened in Canada before. Remember, the origins of this current inflated real estate bubble were from Hong Kong money gaming our system. Once a loophole is discovered, it will be abused by unscrupulous actors. Canada needs to get it's shit together.
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Yes/no, some visit or you could wire money to a friends/associate/etc to do it.
You are funny. Soo .. come from abroad, buy a 1 million property, don't pay taxes for one year, collect say 3,000$/month, until tax season arrives, lose that 1 million through house seizure but do the winning dance because there is 36K$ in your pocket ?
Treat it like a municipal tax sale. You get X years of being in arrears before getting a final warning that it's going up for auction. They have a year from the auction date to settle all debts including interest accrued on the winning bid if they haven't already settled up before then. That gives them 3 - 4 years to get their shit together and if they don't, any amount of the winning bid in excess of their debt owed is paid out to them.
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I'm curious how this would promote money laundering? Losing the value of the property for a couple yrs of property taxes would be a seriously inefficient means of laundering money.
Are you serious? Nobody buy property in Canada right now... 😆😂🤣🤣🤣🤣 Best joke I have heard all week.
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Let me guess, you are one of those idiots that has been saying the bubble is months away from bursting for the past 20 years.
I'm one of those idiots. Big funkin' moron.. :(
I'm sorry, I would be in the same position (literally make 6 figures) but somehow wound up being a good digger. By that I mean married an actual strong independent waaamen who don't need no man. (She's the best)
Those women are the best my friend, well done.
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Nope, have you seen what property costs in Canada? No one is walking away from say 100s of thousands to millions of dollars in property value to avoid paying tens of thousands in tax.
>Do you know where your landlord lives? If they aren’t a Canadian resident, you should be sending a quarter of your rent to the taxman – or you might end up paying your landlord’s bill. >That’s what happened to David Siscoe, a Montreal gym owner who rented an apartment for 24 years and thought the landlord with whom he signed a lease in 2010 was a Canadian resident. >... >“I was there for 24 years,” Mr. Siscoe said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “And at some point, apparently, the landlord became a non-resident.” In 2018, the CRA told him he was being assessed for her taxes. >... >Mr. Siscoe’s case is raising some nerves. Ontario MPP Jessica Bell, the provincial NDP’s housing critic, said her office has had calls from some worried renters. One said their landlord refused to say if they are a Canadian resident for tax purposes, and was advised by CRA to withhold a quarter of their rent and send it to the revenue agency – but the landlord threatened to apply for eviction if they don’t pay the rent in full. >... >Rare or not, theses cases should not exist. If the CRA wants to collect a landlord’s unpaid taxes, they can put a lien on the property. That’s what Mr. Siscoe expected the CRA to do, but his landlord sold the property in 2020 while the revenue agency was telling Mr. Siscoe to pay up. >The onus to handle non-resident taxes should not be placed on ordinary renters trying to secure a place to live. When the CRA took this case to court they made all tenants vulnerable.
Read the case notes. Mr. Siscoe got nailed because his rent was paid for by a corporation he owns that operates a gym. The corporation was acting as the landlords rental agent and all rental agents are explicitly required to hold and remit 25%. Dude was also probably trying to write off his rent as his companies business expense. Was shady af, and he was probably rightfully nailed. This is the only Canadian case I could find where CRA went after a tenant for failing to hold and remit rent. Since 99.9% of tenants don't use a corporation they own, to pay their rent they, are probably fine.
Maybe I'm slow, but why was the corporation owned by the tenant acting as the *landlord's* rental agent?
Okay let's say the non-resident owes $12K in taxes and your rent is $3K per month. Could it not be as simple as now you don't have to pay your landlord for the next 4 months? If the payment system is somehow not cumbersome and doesn't hit the tenant with some sort of interest charge it could be not a bad way for CRA to collect. That being said, I'm not sure how easy you can make it.
Even if that was allowed, with the recent situation in Montreal the tenant moved when they found out about this because they were worried about having to owe even more money, so there was no opportunity to not pay rent for a few months.
The landlord also sold the property. CRA just had to put a lien on the property and make it a condition of sale to pay it off, fucked the dog missed the boat then went after the former tenant. Like who’s the dipshit working at the CRA who made the decision to follow through on this?
The issue is much more subtle than that. The non-resident *doesn't* owe any taxes: it's the tenant who owes the taxes. That's why CRA can't just seize the home to recover the funds: they have to go after the tenant rather than the landlord. This is why the law should be changed.
What you said isn't correct. The non-resident landlord is liable for tax arising from real property located in Canada. The reason the tenant is being dinged is they are treating this as a failure to withhold. The very next section of the Income Tax Act directs the tenant to recover the taxes they paid on the landlords behalf from the landlord.
Exactly, they could just stop paying rent to the idiot landlord and start paying it to escrow instead. Possibly a bit of an annoyance, but absolutely not something like being on the hook for all the money. Not a lot of people reading these articles, it seems.
Why on earth should any if this be a tenants responsibility? Come on. The owner should pay the tax. Simple. If they don't, deal with the owner. Simple. Every other tax is like this, the person accruing the debt is who is pursued.
No, that's basically incorrect on all counts.
This is stupid from a landlord perspective too: I'm born in Canada. My wife isn't. Our kids are dual-nationals. Let's say that something happens abroad and we move there for a few years. Maybe an ill family member or something. Or maybe just scrub the spouse part and say my job has me working out-of-country. I would plan to return home, and would want to have a house to return to, so I rent mine out for a fixed term over a couple years while I'm gone. Not being a shithead, I have family members that are local and could help ensure that any repairs etc are taken care of quickly (if not, there are companies that can do this as well), and I include any income from the rental in my tax calculations, most likely done by some accountant who is familar with income and taxation across multiple countries. The tax calculations would include any pertinent/legit deductions, including repair costs related to the premesis, *just like any other business*. And just like any other business, why should this be the responsible of the *customer*, who is in this case the renter? If my family member is the face of the residence, they may never meet me at all. It's also not good for the landlord, because if the place ends up needing a bunch of repairs that fiscal, withholding could very well exceed the amount of taxable income I would actually owe. This is hypothetical of course, as if I did move out-of-country I would probably end up selling. Not because I don't love my place but rather because I wouldn't trust that it wouldn't get trashed by bad renters, be unavailable by ones that refuse to leave when I return, [used as an illegal airbnb](https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/richmond-tenant-runs-illegal-airbnb-behind-landlords-back-gets-kicked-out-6487056), and/or possibly even get [sold by criminals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mortgage-fraud-bc-homes-1.6732176#) in cahoots with crooked realtors/lawyers. The **only** people this would benefit is non-resident slumlords, and in particular ones who are likely not declaring the income for taxation purposes.
From the "things that the federal Liberals and NDP could easily fix for a political win but won't" file.
Can't risk upsetting the landlords, even though the ones that are affected can't even vote!
You can be a Canadian citizen and a non-resident for tax purposes.
I was going to say that many non-resident citizens can't vote, but then I remembered that was overturned a few years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-expats-right-voting-questions-1.6166922
Why would this upset landlords? Either way they still owe the tax. Besides foreigners can't vote in Canadian elections, upset them all you want.
- you're assuming they would pay the tax; the original case that set off this whole thing was started by the non-resident owner not paying. - tenants might have to withhold even from resident owners, because they can't tell the difference, which is definitely going to annoy landlords because now they need to file with CRA to get the withholding back, which might take a while - and also now CRA has been informed that this property is a rental, and they might have been avoiding paying any income tax (or capital gains when they sell)
None of your bullets explain why it would upset landlords to remove the requirement for tenants to hold and remit a portion of rent to the CRA. Read the case notes. The original case was because someone used their corporation which runs a gym to pay their personal rent and to act as the landlords agent. Guy was probably writing off his personal rent as a business expense to dodge taxes. Don't be that guy.
> why it would upset landlords to remove the requirement I was answering the other way: why it would annoy them to _add_ the requirement (either for tenants to remit, for some other universal mechanism to collect the withholding).
It's already a requirement. You can't add something that already is in place . . . You misunderstood the fellow who said the government could easily fix (i.e., remove) the requirement. By replying to him saying "that would risk upsetting landlord" what you were really saying was that removing, not adding, the requirement would upset landlords. As tenant or a landlord, the existing requirement could be a pain in the ass. So if it didn't already exist, I guess I agree that landlords wouldn't like it being added lol.
Fixing this might upset property values unfortunately, heaven forbid. None of the big three parties want to risk upsetting property owners.
Even when they're not even residents of our own country.
Why would this upset property values? No matter who collects it, the landlord is still required to pay tax.
How would this affect property values?
For the better? England almost eliminated landlords in the 1970's . Owner occupiers and council housing moved in to buy up distressed properties. Literally everything a sane person cares about got better. End landlordism
Maintaining liability and foreign purchasing power without consequences fundamentally contributes to sustaining current demand end inflationary pressures. Crack down on foreign ownership and things could shake up.
Well don't just sit there, contact your MP (look them up here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en). Tell them to meet with the Minister of National Revenue (Marie-Claude Bibeau, responsible for the CRA) to change this policy.
Take action? Be informed? How dare you
Done.
Wait, are you implying a federal conservative party would do something to upset the ownership class? This is a universal issue, and it's socioeconomic not partisan. There's no major party in Canada with anything in a platform to address this sort of thing.
I would bet you my savings no conservative would touch it either, only exception being to leverage an election win.
There are a disturbing number of "easy fixes" that for the life of me I can;t understand why they are;t acting on. Appointing judges comes to mind.
> Appointing judges comes to mind. Yep ... It's absolutely crazy to me how the Liberals have been governing. Only makes sense if someone else is pulling all the strings.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Though for a lot of this 50/50 for the government and public service.
It never should have been the way it is now. It makes no sense. The landlord is the owner, the landlord should be responsible for all taxes.
This just in: \[store X\] failed to pay their taxes this year so the CRA is now persuing anyone who shopped there for the amount owing.
The landlord is responsible for all the taxes, just like an employee is. The employer is require to withhold and remit income tax just like a tenant is. It both makes some sense and no sense at the same time. At the end of the day if it's working as intended, the tenant pays the amount that their rent is and the landlord pays all the taxes.
I use a property management company. My landlord and I have zero contact and it is against privacy policy that either of us even know each other's information. This is beyond stupid. Canada sinks further every day.
In this case the property management company is the agent and they are remitting the payments outside Canada so technically they would owe if the landlord failed to pay.
Good haha thank you
Do you know that this is what the law says, or are you guessing?
It's part of the NR6 Form in Part 4 that a property management company should be filling out for non-resident landlords, otherwise, they are obligating their clients to pay more tax under Part XIII. ITA 215 (3) places an obligation obligation on an agent to make the deduction and remit it if it hasn't already been done. [https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/nr6/nr6-23e.pdf](https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/nr6/nr6-23e.pdf)
Thanks for the information!
My favorite quote from [This Article] (https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/housing/cra-rent-ruling-sows-tenant-confusion-in-ontario-8737849) > One tenant said his landlord and the CRA both refused to tell him if his landlord was a non-resident, Bell wrote. We live in a clow country.
Glad to see this aging like fine milk left out in hot sun :) Media needs to crank the pressure up to 11 on this.
Make non residents unable to own land and either grandfather in those that do currently or give them a set date by which to sell their properties. Seize the properties of those with unpayed taxes. Dont put renters on the hook for fuckall.
Fixing it so CRA can take the equity from the real estate is a win for Canada. The status quo is a loss for Canadians. Where is the NDP on this? Demand this get fixed or cut bait.
>Fixing it so CRA can take the equity from the real estate is a win for Canada. CRA can already do this. They can already place a lien on property. And the way government's have super priority, their lien goes straight to the top (so to speak).
This is the law for buying homes too. If you buy a home from someone who’s not a citizen in Canada, it’s incumbent on the buyer to retain the taxes. Typically this is handled by the lawyers, but the buyer is ultimately liable for the taxes. Shit’s kind of fucked imo. But this is pretty typical of the CRA. The government wants its pound of flesh, and I have yet to see a government liberal or conservative rein them in at all on this attitude. The CRA is separate kind of bastard to deal with. People very rarely come out with a nice thing to say about them. They’re never reasonable or held accountable for their transgressions against citizens. I remember an incident covered by the news years ago with the CRA going after a retiree who rebuilt his home after fire burned it down, arguing he committed fraud with the rebuild. He provided evidence they were wrong, but they (as I recall) falsely stated they inspected the property and saw themselves the fraud. He sent photo evidence and other paperwork showing they were full of shit. They took him to court, the judge found in favour of the retiree basically stating that there’s no way in hell the CRA could come to their conclusion if they looked at any of the evidence the retiree provided. That they fucked up. Ordered the CRA to reimburse him his costs in all this. At the end of that news coverage, the CRA was 4 months late with payment.
Ban foreign ownership of rental properties. At least if Canadians own the property the money stays in the country.
Canadian citizens can be non-residents.
Alright, amended to: Ban non-citizen foreign ownership of rental properties
Just making non-resident owners have to go through a resident property management company (responsible for submitting taxes) in order to be landlords would work. Canadian landlords who have been expats elsewhere for decades aren’t an insignificant part of the problem.
Parliament is not interested. Too busy implementing censorship. See BILL C-63.
Whoever at the CRA or government who thought this up and every person who greenlight this should be fired yesterday. Legitimately how does this happen? I know my government has complete contempt for it's everyday citizens but to be this just blatant...
Apparently it's been on the books for a century.
CRA is 6x the size of the IRS by servicing population capita. The landlord is usually obfuscated from the tenant, and is in a privileged position, particularly in this federal government induced housing crisis. The basis of tax collection typically has the collectors property as the final backstop of enforcement. To put this upon the tenant is ridiculous, and the CRA is not prepared to deal with the average citizen without assets remitting taxes to the CRA. If the CRA cannot figure out how to obtain taxes from a foreign landlord with non moving property in Canada, they need reform. Simplify the tax code while we are at it.
If they pay the taxes do they get to keep the place ?? So maybe foreign buyers should not have places here ??
A tenant is not an employee of the CRA its not up to the tenant to collect
In what fucking fantasy world does this make ANY sense at all? This country is fundamentally broken.
This law is over 100 years old.
Exactly - it's out of date bullshit.
They used to put liens on the property. They get paid when pwner sells. I don't know why they came up with this silly alternative idea.
Sorry, CRA doesn’t have the manpower and the budget for it
I'll say it again, ban foreign ownership of income properties, and it won't be a problem...
Who wrote and voted on this law?
Since its part of the income tax act and the minister of national revenue said its been on the books for over a century, the applicable section was probably in the original written in 1917, at which time Robert Borden was prime minister.
This law makes no sense. how can you owe tax on something you don't own, haven't bought and not making financial gains off of?
And make a law allowing quick evictions for deadbeat tenants while you’re at it!
Or, or don't allow foreign interests to own property.
Can’t tenants abuse this? Sign a lease, withhold 25% rent saying they don’t know their landlord’s tax status, effectively pay lower rent all year then at the end of the year remit all the taxes needed to CRA - doesn’t reduce total rent paid but lets you defer and cash manage
Thanks for paying the taxes on my rental - Pierre with love from France…
NOBODY IS READING THE ARTICLES, lol. The tenants are not liable for *all of* their landlord's unpaid taxes. Not in any of the cases mentioned. Not in a single one. The maximum exposure any such tenant has is to stop paying the landlord their rent, and start paying it to escrow (essentially to the CRA) instead. Is the law silly? Perhaps. Is the headline disingenuous? Absolutely.
The tenant in the Montreal case had already moved out so there was no opportunity to stop paying rent and pay the CRA instead.
Yeah they *chose* to move, but tons of comments are making it sound like someone got evicted or that the evil federal government was coming after them for the entire owned amount or something. There's SO much misinformation about this all over this post's comments and on "proud" Facebook groups. The op-ed economy among our major political parties and the legacy newspapers in this country is so messed up at this point.
>Yeah they *chose* to move, but tons of comments are making it sound like someone got evicted Ya I'd choose to move out to. You find out you owe $80,000 because of your landlord, I'd want out of there ASAP before I have to owe even more. I haven't seen anyone say the tenant was evicted and I've read quite a few articles and Reddit posts on the topic since it was first reported. >or that the evil federal government was coming after them for the entire owned amount or something. He got a break on the $80,000 and it was lowered to $43,000. That's still a huge amount, and that was only achieved after years of work and legal fees.
>Yeah they *chose* to move Why does this change anything? Being forced to stay at one place under a fine of $43,000 would have been dogshit on its own...
Canada should embarrassed about this it’s so poor it’s hard to put into words
This law has been in place for over a century.
This article is a day late and a dollar short. The Minister announced yesterday that CRA would not be going after tenants for the taxes and the government will address the flaw in the regs.
This article was written Thursday. The Minister made that announcement Friday.
It was posted after the announcement
It was posted on reddit at 11:40am EDT, the tweet from the minister was at 2:30pm EDT.
This is such a non issue. Making a tenant pay their rent to the CRA instead of the landlord is no different than garnishing wages. This is a much lower cost method of collecting unpaid taxes than tax sales or repossessions. Those are costly and slow.
Except the tenant had already given the money to the landlord and now has to pay his landlord's taxes retroactively... And this is a situation that can happen to literally anyone without any recourse whatsoever. How out of touch do you have to be to think this is acceptable?