Property tax cap favours Nova Scotia's weathy

[kzt79]

Originally Posted by The Crow Whisperer

Much of the property owning middle class bougies in HRM work for govt and academia, they only vote left: Lib or NDP or Green.
They hate capitalism, freedom, free speech, the United States and republicans, are resentful and jealous of anyone who have a little more pocket change than they do, and want to live in an authoritarian socialist country where the state owns the means of production.

While this seems a rather extreme take, there's more than a grain of truth here. I have definitely noticed a trend of thinly veiled suspicion and distrust toward anyone achieving almost any type of success, especially financial - excluding of course the "favoured few" binging at the government trough.

Nova Scotia has a long track record of driving out our most productive individuals and businesses. Then we turn around and wonder why almost every long term economic measure has been so terrible for so long...

[OldDartmouthMark]

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[Empire]

NS non-resident tax

Globe & Mail
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...ners-who-come/

[someone123]

This seems like a very limited tool for fixing the problems in NS. Some issues with it:

- These properties are not necessarily the form of housing that is in short supply in NS
- This is a very small market compared to the housing shortfall that exists
- If NS implements this and ON doesn't (for example), can the retirees switch their residence status to NS to avoid the tax? Perversely this would cause NS to pay their health care costs but since they're retirees their income may be low.
- There's a housing crunch now but there are already signs of the market cooling in Canada and interest rates are going up. Economic conditions can change quickly, but these rules are hard to roll back and once you "burn" people looking for holiday properties they may not come back.
- NS does not have a shortage of land; it is mostly undeveloped. There are lots of other policy levers available that have not been tried. To see how perverse this is you need only look at all the articles that simultaneously talk about (1) out of province buyers and (2) environmentalists/NIMBYs that object to every single greenfield development in NS.

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by someone123

This seems like a very limited tool for fixing the problems in NS. Some problems with it:

- These cottages are not necessarily the form of housing that is in short supply in NS
- This is likely a very small market compared to the housing shortfall that exists
- There's a housing crunch now but there are already signs of the market cooling in Canada and interest rates are going up. Economic conditions can change quickly, but these rules are hard to roll back and once you "burn" people looking for holiday properties they may not come back.
- NS does not have a shortage of land; it is mostly undeveloped. There are lots of other regulatory areas that can be focused on (should have been years ago).

Agreed on all points. I think this is a bad idea which will do next to nothing to address any housing shortage. It surprised me because I perceived Houston as smarter than that and I can only conclude that it's really just a pretty base political sop. It might scare up a little loose change from between the seat cushions, but it won't produce any real revenue windfall and certainly won't fix the housing deficit. It will, however, alienate a lot of non-residents who have already demonstrated that they love the province - at precisely the same time that Houston wants to aggressively grow the population.

Seems ill-conceived all the way around. Very disappointing, to me.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Saul Goode

Agreed on all points. I think this is a bad idea which will do next to nothing to address any housing shortage. It surprised me because I perceived Houston as smarter than that and I can only conclude that it's really just a pretty base political sop. It might scare up a little loose change from between the seat cushions, but it won't produce any real revenue windfall and certainly won't fix the housing deficit. It will, however, alienate a lot of non-residents who have already demonstrated that they love the province - at precisely the same time that Houston wants to aggressively grow the population.

Seems ill-conceived all the way around. Very disappointing, to me.

Pretty much spot-on. This seems to be Houston getting MacMaster to appeal to their largely rural voting base. It is very disappointing. Those folks have, sadly, a very skewed view of how the world works and many of them look on come-from-aways with both suspicion and contempt. The attitude is that such property owners are very rich, successful, and thus unwelcome in their part of NS. It is a very small-minded attitude. The stated reason that they need the reveunue is simply false. The amount this will raise is minuscule and could easily be found within the existing envelope if the wanted to.