Tax on home equity is latest proposal in Liberals' bogeyman approach to housing

financialpost.com:

There were a number of reports last week about the prime minister and finance minister meeting with a government-funded think tank to discuss a variety of issues involving “generational fairness,” one of which was the introduction of a home equity tax.

This particular think tank, Generation Squeeze, seems to think that one of the ways to enable the youth to afford a new home is to go after older people who have worked hard historically to save enough to buy a home and pay off their mortgages. Such older people’s homes have often benefited from decades of capital appreciation.

“Gen Squeeze believes that it’s time to protect real shelters, not tax shelters. It’s unfair to sustain a system in which the hard work Canadians do every day in their jobs is taxed more than the wealth homeowners gain from rising prices while they sleep and watch TV,” it says on its website.

“The first step is putting a price on housing inequity by adding a modest surtax on homes valued at more than $1 million. This surtax will apply only to the top 12 per cent of high-value homes; the vast majority of Canadians won’t pay a penny more. But it will help slow down home prices so earnings have a chance to catch up, demonstrating allegiance to the Canadian dream that a good home should be in reach for what hard work can earn.”

The think tank’s website is full of the usual left-wing victimhood messaging, but it’s quite clear that older Canadians are the apparent problem.

Ignoring that, is a home equity tax a good idea? The short answer is no. Canadians already pay a long list of taxes on their homes, such as municipal property taxes, carbon taxes and GST/HST on new builds, renovations and utilities. In addition, if the eventual disposition of their home