They tell me to write short blog posts. As you can tell, I’ve been having difficulty. Let’s see how this one goes.

If you’ve ever bought a home in Ontario, you know about Land Transfer Tax. You probably don’t remember it fondly, but you can’t forget it because it was so substantial (approximately $16,500 for a $1,000,000 home). If you’ve bought a home in Toronto in the last few years, your memories are likely twice as vivid since you not only paid the substantial land transfer tax to the provincial goverment, you also paid the equally substantial land transfer tax to the City. Did you know that Toronto is the ONLY CITY IN CANADA with two land transfer taxes? As you can probably already tell from my tone, this irks me.

It’s not that I’m against taxes because I’m not. But I AM against taxes that I deem unfair cash grabs by governments that can’t balance their budgets, which is how I would characterize the second land transfer tax payable to the City. It’s already hard enough for people to save up the money needed to buy a home, especially first time home buyers. For the City of Toronto to ask home buyers to contribute such a significant amount after they already have to pay such a large amount to the Province is, in my opinion, too onerous a burden. New home buyers already contribute plenty to the economy. They buy new furniture and appliances; they hire carpenters and plumbers and electricians and painters; they pay lawyers and realtors and home inspectors and movers; you get the picture! Moving ain’t cheap. So why should they have to pay the City of Toronto such a significant amount just because the City can’t balance its budget?

The City of Toronto land transfer tax hasn’t been around that long. It’s time for it to disappear, as our Mayor said it would. If you’d like to see it disappear, go to www.LetsGetThisRightToronto.ca to contact your City councillor and let them know that you want this tax abolished. This is a special website set up by the Toronto Real Estate Board for this purpose. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’ll save you money when you buy and help increase the number of potential buyers when you sell.

There. I’ve said it. Was that short enough?