Case against the Foreign Buyers Taxes and Speculation Taxes
 

Currently going through court is the case against the foreign buyers tax (which could likely be applied to the speculation tax).

Looking at the legality I think they will win on that it violates several of our international treaties and the charter challenge (not arguing here if the tax is good or not but they make several good points why its illegal). Barry Appleton who is a highly respected NAFTA lawyer gave a good explanation of why it violated NAFTA here https://www.straight.com/news/746041...violates-nafta

Lawyers update on the trial is here http://www.branchmacmaster.com/forei...-property-tax/

Amended notice of claim is here
http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/...BYdp%2F15xE%3D

A reminder that this post is based on discussing the legality rather than the merits.

NAFTA is dead, the replacement deal has not been signed yet. That article is from 2016. Case over.

Summary trial ends this week.

Btw a nice comment about Canadians, I wish the government luck justifying overriding the charter based on scapegoating foreign buyers for high home prices https://business.financialpost.com/p...ers-in-the-u-s

From yesterday's Globe & Mail, the reasons for the outrageous price increases bolded:

Vancouver housing prices continue to decline, throwing cold water on the speculative buying activity of recent years.

The days of rampant flipping are over and industry specialists predict the market to further decline before plateauing, and then slowly rise again, but not with the same frenzy of the past three or four years...

Realtor Layla Yang, who has offices on the west side of the city as well as Richmond, B.C., says she just sold a house in the Arbutus area for $1-million less than the asking price. The home at 2569 West 22nd Ave. spent 98 days on the market with a listing price of $5.75-million. It sold on Feb. 25 for $4.75-million...

...Detached houses have dropped much further, particularly in West Vancouver, Richmond and the west side of Vancouver, where the inflow of foreign money has dropped off.

Ms. Yang says many of her clients are investors from China and it’s become difficult to transfer money into Canada because of new Chinese controls on the flight of capital. As well, the province’s new 20-per-cent foreign-buyers tax, among other new taxes, is putting them off.

“If we talk about the luxury market, which I am frequently in, I find most of my buyers are immigrants from China. And right now it is very hard for them to wire the money to Canada, according to my clients, and I’ve heard that from other realtor friends, too. That’s the No. 1 reason.

“And a lot of taxes are really affecting the way they buy,” she says, citing taxes as the “No. 2 reason” her clients aren’t buying like they used to.

“In the past, they buy one [house] and then buy a second one, but right now they face the empty-homes taxes. For them, that’s kind of a headache because they have to find a tenant. Sometimes they just want a vacation home, whatever..(bold mine)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real...-in-vancouver/

One has to wonder how many clients Ms. Yang helped snap up mutiple Canadian homes. We have seen several examples lately, not least the poor little rich girl, Ms. Meng. Looks like the taxes are working as intended.

We know major players actively market new projects in Asia. They wouldn't bother (or they'd stop) if they were only selling 5%.

Including the developers owned by the union pension funds. And the NDP is pro union. Hmmm....?


Btw just an update, the summary trial has again been extended to April 1st. Verdict is expected by October 2019. Yes, close to 2 years just to complete a summary trial before the class action even proceeds. Got to love our legal system!

I see you've found out how pension funds work, and now it's in all of your arguments.

I think this applies:

https://pics.me.me/we-should-improve...y-19213023.png

I think this case against an employer for discriminating against someone foreign illustrates why this tax is illegal (even though I do think this case is bullshit).

https://business.financialpost.com/o...idnt-even-hire

Imperial Oil offered a job only to retract it; if they'd said "no non-citizens or non-PRs for practical reasons" so that there was no application or rejection, they'd've likely been fine.

Isn't it obvious if you can't work in this country you can't work there? Whats to stop a bunch of illegals from applying to every job with fake resumes then suing when they are later rejected because it was found they lied?

Correct, so say upfront "proof of citizenship or work permit required" so that illegals need not apply (or can try to sue and get laughed out of court). The problem appears to be the lack of a disclaimer.

The BC Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit on Thursday.

The basic gist of it is that the tax is based on immigration status and not citizenship, and therefore it doesn't amount to discrimination.

The full judgement is here.

Had my eye on this case, there's a few things the judge doesn't appear to have considered such as whether it violates our trade treaties, looks like he excluded this evidence from the case and is saying its not something a domestic court can deal with. [Full decision here](https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/1...m#_Toc22721539)

​

Interesting enough he said we cannot apply the tax to provincial nominees, you can see that there was a case [here where a provincial nominee was charged the tax. It seems like we could be on the hook to refund the tax to provincial nominees.](https://globalnews.ca/news/5972101/b...rs-tax-unfair/)

>\[188\] Similarly, the Amendments do not create a distinction base on national origin. Many people of foreign national origin are not subject to the tax. Persons who originate from foreign countries but have permanent residence status or are Provincial Nominees are exempt.

As you can see in the judge's ruling, likely our higher speculation tax on foreign owned investments is illegal under our trade treaties:

>\[158\] In its second amended notice of civil claim the plaintiff refers to 33 international treaties that Canada has entered into with certain named countries, which it refers to as the “List A Treaties”. They include the *North American Free Trade Agreement* (“NAFTA”). The plaintiff submits that in these treaties, Canada has ensured that governments here will provide treatment to investors from List A countries that is no less favourable than that received by Canadians operating in a reciprocating country.
>
>\[159\] As an example, the plaintiff cites Article 1102 of NAFTA that provides:
>
>1.         Each Party shall accord to investors of another Party treatment no less favourable than it accords, in like circumstances, to its own investors with respect to the establishment, acquisition, expansion, management, conduct, operation, and sale or other disposition of investments.
>
>2.         Each Party shall accord to investments of investors of another Party treatment no less favourable than that it accords, in like circumstances, to investments of its own investors with respect to the establishment, acquisition, expansion, management, conduct, operation, and sale or other disposition of investments.
>
>3.         The treatment accorded by a Party under paragraphs 1 and 2 means, with respect to a state or province, treatment no less favourable than the most favourable treatment accorded, in like circumstance, by that state or province to investors, and to investments of investors, of the Party of which it forms a part.
>
>\[160\] Under Article 1139 of NAFTA, the ownership of real estate constitutes an investment that is protected by NAFTA. An investor is defined as someone who has made, is making or seeks to make an investment. Accordingly, persons who seek to make a real estate investment who are nationals of one of the contracting parties are covered by the terms of NAFTA.

Poor Misher, so wrong on so many levels.

Is Jing Li an American or Mexican? No? Case dismissed.

Is half your post count arguing against Misher or trying to bait him? You've made some great posts in the past so it's slightly disheartening that you are triggered enough to dedicate posts to petty comments like this.

#diversityofthought

If you read the judgement, which includes all the relevant arguments that were made at trial (and the ones that were rejected as irrelevent) you'll see that the judge absolutely considered - and rejected - all the arguments that Misher cited, which were the ones made by the plaintiff in the case. Among the judge's explanation are the statements "there has been no demonstration by the plaintiff that those FTA’s contain investor protection provisions. Neither do those FTA’s contain national treatment or expropriation compensation obligations relating to investments."

There are several other points to counter the claims quoted by Misher.

Oh please. For reasons ChangingCity pointed out the judiciary was never going to rule in the plaintiff's favour. Yet Misher with his undisclosed ties to the real estate industry kept pushing this as a possibility, that the good times of the China-fuelled bubble would return again. It's not going to happen, moreso because of the harsh threats Chinese nationals face in getting money out of their own country than any tax Horgan and the NDP applied. And now the Feds will be getting into the game with a tax of their own. Any project that isn't within reach of local incomes somehow will whitehr on the vine, I was reminded of that yet again today when I passed the decaying block of Barclay that Bosa and Westbank foisted off on HK's Grand World Holding for a ludicrous sum.

This seems like the most appropriate place to post this:

Which is why any hypocritical lawsuit brought against BC will fall flat on its ass.