In BC seniors have the option of deferring property taxes on a primary residence until the home is sold.
On the one hand, it allows people on a fixed income with a large asset to defer the cost of their property until death, and thus stay in their homes etc. etc. Given that homes have become ridiculously expensive in the last couple of decades, and property taxes are a percentage of value, that makes a sort of sense.
In practice it means we have a vast cohort of wealthy boomers not paying any property taxes on their hugely inflated homes, forcing the rest of us to pay for all the services they are currently enjoying until they die off.
As the generation that first began the screaming for ‘tax cuts’ as they entered their peak earning years, and is now demanding that we not charge them property taxes in their retirement while simultaneously demanding increases in health care spending to support them, my sympathy is limited. The community centre which I am cheerfully paying to support is usually full of seniors, most days - and good for them. But if they can, I’d like them to pay their share.
And yet there are many, many boomers living in poverty that never had the benefit of those tax cuts they all screamed for, and aren’t getting the benefit of deferred property taxes now.
