Your Reactions
- With the benefits one gets from the City this tax is outrageous! You get penalized for investing in your home because it sells for more. In addition the same work is required to transfer a home regardless of cost, it has made me invest elsewhere in the world and not in Manitoba.
~ D.T. - Although we purchased a house here in Winnipeg in 2003, its value has gone up considerably and at some point we are considering downsizing which of course would mean the purchase of another house or condominium. However, the thought of having to pay the increased amount involved in the revised 2004 tax (2%) makes us hesitant to go ahead. We will wait until something can be done to improve the LTT situation. I would appreciate any website that would keep us current on this situation or anything further we can do as homeowners.
~ R. & D.
Revenue Neutral? Not Anymore!
Land Transfer Tax on Overdrive
When Finance Minister Eugene Kostyra brought in the land transfer tax in the 1987 provincial budget, he said the tax was fair because it gives a break to those purchasing average and low-cost housing.
For homes $75,000 and less, it was revenue neutral to what the government had been charging to register a new title at the Land Titles Office. Houses priced from $0 to $30,000 were exempt altogether, while homes from $30,001 to $90,000 were taxed at a 0.5 per cent rate, as a result, it did not impact a large number of home buyers. Even higher priced homes at $150,000 were being taxed at $900. It was certainly not as fair and similar to a user fee for the more average priced homes, but it wasn't outrageous either.
Fast forward to 2011.
Average house prices have gone up dramatically in the past few years, especially since Finance Minister Greg Selinger increased the highest land transfer tax threshold rate of 1.5 per cent to two per cent in 2004. As a result, Manitoba has the highest land transfer tax rate in the country, which kicks in at the lowest threshold level of $200,000. Ontario has a two per cent rate, too, but it does not apply until homes priced over $400,000.
REALTORS® think its time for change and bring the tax more in line with its original intent. It should be more revenue neutral, similar to the user fee today in Saskatchewan.
Go to the compare page and see how much the land transfer tax has for the same home sold in 1987 and then again in 2010/2011.
Recent homebuyers say...
Coming from Calgary, it was a set cost. There is no more work involved as a house gets more expensive so why are they charging more?
~ P.V.
I have just moved and suffered the indignity and cost of paying an absurd amount of tax for nothing.
~ K.S.
I, like most, feel they are thieves stealing from us with the support and endorsement of the government.
~ G. H