Halifax Population & Growth

[ArchAficionado]

Yeah the cap is absolute bogus. Indeed one of the most regressive schemes within NS.

With the steep price increases pretty much anybody who has owned for 20+ years is paying tax on about half or less than the current value of their home.
To be fair though, it is also troublesome the idea of 70+ retired folks getting priced out of the home they've lived in for 40 or 50 years because it is being taxed on this new wildly increased value (although, to be fair, that may encourage seniors to sell and downsize and keep more liquidity in the housing market, also tipping the scale back towards younger folks a bit).
I for one am a proponent of land / property being a more core lever of taxation. I think everyone except the top 1% would benefit from a substantially increased property tax / wealth tax (or at the very least include all capital gains) *paired with* a steep deduction of income taxes, which largely hurt the middle class, to max out at maybe 25% (combined).

At risk of getting more off topic with the tax business, it's also deeply frustrating to me how peoples' ignorance is often weaponized against their own self interest, my example being the recent (and scrapped) liberal proposal to increase the capital gains inclusion rate from 50% to 66% on profits over 250k. One of their vanishingly few good ideas, it was instantly campaigned against by every CEO around (who were eagerly given press coverage in exchange for a small donation I'm sure). And, curiously, I saw SO many comments of average joes who I doubt will ever see 250k in their lives griping about how they'd be paying 66% tax when they sell their dodge ram 16500 child crusher.

Pardon my rambling but the TL;DR is I think that the current revenue scheme taxes labour far too heavily, because it's a low hanging fruit, and doesn't equitably tax ownership. NS should definitely sundown the assessment cap, and perhaps replace it with something like a property tax credit for retirees or for those under a threshold income.