Overseas buyers of Vancouver homes face additional tax

Toronto

CANADA plans to tax overseas investors buying homes in Vancouver, one of North America's hottest property markets, as it seeks to tamp down price gains in an area that absorbed more than C$1 billion (S$1 billion) of foreign money in five weeks alone.

An additional property-transfer tax of 15 per cent will apply to foreign nationals and overseas corporations buying residential property in the Metro Vancouver area starting from Aug 2, the province of British Columbia said on Monday. That means an extra C$300,000 levy on a C$2 million home, it said.