[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

I need to read more about that.

they are raising the exemption threshold so that is good.
They are taxing more the sale of rentals and secondary homes, so that is good.

The rest, I'm not sure of what I'm reading.

This reminds me of the discussion in the UK thread.  The government has stated that they wish to create incentives for the creation of rental properties.  They cut the GST and increased amortization rates for those purposes.  Now taxing properties built for rental when sold seems to run contrary to the policy objective of getting people to invest in the creation of more rental properties.  Why would I do that when I am going to be hit with a larger capital gains tax?  And again, realize that this is mainly corporations doing the building and now the inclusion rate just went up for them on the very first dollar of capital gain.

Corporations weren't building the units we need.

They weren't investing more when the exemption went from 75% to 50% under Chrétien and Martin (I had to double check, I thought it was under the Mulroney Conservatives).  Investments remained the same and productivity remained stable in some sectors, dipped in other.

What affect our productivity the most is our Canadian $.  It sucks, but we don't produce technology.  It's imported and mainly sold in US$, even when made in Asia.

I still have not read through the finer prints, so I am unsure if it affects everything like a business reselling a particular piece of equipment (or a building) after some years for more than its amortized value.  Medias only concentrate on secondary homes and business resale.  

Imho, going from 50% to 66% is not going to hurt productivity or investments a lot, most entrepreneurs do not go in it with the idea "I'm going to resell my business in 50 years and make a fuckton of cash at 50% tax rate".  Only in the tech sector would that mentality exists.

There is an increase for the exemption and that is a good thing, but it could be increased further, particularly for agriculturists who face high land value.