City council has narrowly defeated a proposal that would have seen a land transfer tax imposed on everyone selling their home.

Calgary Herald ArchiveCalgary’s city council is looking at a development tax on new or redeveloped lands.

In a letter to the mayor and aldermen prior to the recent vote by council, the Calgary Real Estate Board and the Alberta Real Estate Association called the tax unfair.

“It is essentially a home buyers’ tax and singles out a select group of individuals for taxation,” says board president Bonnie Wegerich. “It asks homebuyers to pay for municipal services which would benefit the entire community.”

Council was considering asking the province to allow changes to the Municipal Government Act that would allow the city to collect a tax of at least one per cent on the sale of homes, with the money to help finance affordable housing.

While the land tax option was defeated, council did approve recommendations to explore stable sources of funding, such as a development levy on new and redeveloped property.
In its letter, CREB encourages council to consider other “equitable sources of revenue to not place an unwarranted burden” on consumers looking to improve their quality of life by buying or selling property or moving up or down in the marketplace.

“At a time when we are faced with a need for affordable housing, this tax would only compound the problem and further burden an economy under pressure,” wrote Wegerich.

Based on the current $362,557 average selling price of homes listed for sale on CREB’s MLS system, a one-per-cent tax would add more than $3,600 to the transaction.

Wegerich, who also operates Century 21 Castlewood in Airdrie, says the tax would have created a financial incentive for homebuyers to purchase outside of Calgary’s city limits, thereby contributing to an “imbalance in population growth.”

The CREB letter also says the imposition of the tax might have had a negative impact on Calgary’s economic growth by causing some homeowners to rethink their decision to sell and move.


Wegerich says that when the tax was introduced in other municipalities, there was a reduction in activity — one that had spinoff effects in several other segments of the economy.