Well with a gov't power monopoly, they can do things like check power and water utility usage. You can also look at tax return address records for the BC income tax part. Driver license / BCID / immigration records are another. You can also do a 'prove you have a resident in X months or be assessed fines' like many HOAs and mortgage agreements do for various things.
Policies over large numbers aren't about %100 enforcement, a general behavior modification is considered a success usually.
They do this in Monaco as well. I read in an article a while back that some nonresidents have automated timers to turn on/off the lights, turn on the heating, water, etc.
Tax evasion, actually. But yes. Was just implying that checking (or data mining) might not always lead to positives when you're dealing with cunning individuals.
I was going to say this. These rules will drive investment in home automation. I'm also willing to bet that a large portion of the revenue generated from this scheme will be spent on the manpower necessary to enforce it.
That being said I'm happy to be proven wrong, but can we expect any sort of data to support a hypothesis? I'm not sure as I'm unfamiliar with Canada's policies on access to public data.
Home automation won't help in this case, though I suspect there will be some level of falsified leases. It seems that if it's a privately owned residence, it falls into one of two categories: Principal residence or not principal residence. If it's a principal residence, there are likely other documents that would also utilize that address (voter registration, healthcare, drivers license, taxes, insurance). If it's not a principal residence, is it leased out for at least 6 months a year on leases of at least 30 days? If yes you're fine, if no you're fined.
There may be some question with privacy (e.g. proof of leases/lessee), corporate-owned residences, etc. but I'm sure they've factored that into things. The big deterrent to lying about it is probably the magnitude of the penalty for doing that - it's kind of like Martha Stewart: she didn't do time for insider trading, she did time for lying to the FBI (about insider trading).
The proposed fines for trying to defraud the system are much higher than paying the 1%/year tax. It's like parking: pay $5 to park for an hour, or take a 1 in 5 risk of a $100 fine. Most people pay for parking.
EDIT: and the goal isn't to make revenue, it's to free up rental stock. If all the money collected goes towards enforcing the system and 20,000 vacant units end up in the rental market, then the policy is a total success.
> I'm also willing to bet that a large portion of the revenue generated from this scheme will be spent on the manpower necessary to enforce it.
Yep. You can see that with wealth taxes. Most countries that have wealth taxes (e.g. France) make close to nothing from them, because it's inefficient to verify and collect all the data to properly levy the tax, and you need a lot of civil servants for that.
Agreed, and it's likely more about sending signals to the investor class. And make noises like they're doing something about not being able to afford to live here. The government doesn't want prices to crash, because then homeowners would be screaming. But they do want to let the air out of the balloon a bit.
Policies over large numbers aren't about %100 enforcement, a general behavior modification is considered a success usually.