What's a Barnacle? It's yellow, sticks and screams if you try to pry it off your car
Barnacles, bright yellow devices used to make sure parking scofflaws pay their tickets, could soon be making their way to cities across Canada.
When selling a home, Canadians may be exempted from paying capital gains tax on a residential property if it is determined to be their principal residence. A capital gains tax is normally applied to 50% of your profits made from selling an asset for a profit.
However, the CRA is a bit vague when defining one’s principal residence, and several factors could either help or prevent you from qualifying for the principal residence tax exemption.
Below, I’ll explain more about how the CRA determines principal residence and answer some questions about what types of properties may be eligible for the tax exemption.
The CRA requires all taxpayers to claim any capital gains on properties sold on their taxes each year.
However, the CRA makes an exception to this rule for properties that qualify as your principal residence.
If your home qualifies for the principal residence tax exemption, you won’t be required to pay capital gains tax on the profits realized from selling the property.
Over the past few years, the CRA has become stricter about verifying principal residence exemption claims. So, it’s important to understand how this tax exemption works before you claim it.
The CRA imposes capital gains taxes on real estate investors attempting to profit from the sale of a property. Some examples of this could include:
Currently, the capital gains tax in Canada is 50% on realized capital gains.
For example, if you purchase a $300,000 home as an investment and then sell it for $350,000 the following year, your capital gains would be $50,000. With a 50% capital gains tax, you must add only $25,000 (half of the $50,000 gain) to your taxable income for that year.
With this in mind, the principal residence tax exemption could help you save a significant amount of taxes that you’d otherwise pay when selling an investment property.
A principal residence is a property that the owner primarily uses to live in themselves. Although they may rent it out here and there or turn a profit later down the road, they primarily use the residence as a home for themselves and/or their families.
When determining principal residence, there tend to be many grey areas. The CRA does not designate a specific number of days you have to live in a property before it qualifies as a principal residence in any given year.
You don’t have to live in the residence full-time. However, taxpayers may have to prove that they physically lived in the property in the years that they designated the property as a principal residence.
If you claim the principal residence tax exemption after selling a home that you lived in, you’ll want to have some verifying evidence, in case the CRA decides to audit your claim.
If the CRA decides to investigate your claim of a principal residence exemption, they will look at it on a case-by-case basis and analyze all facts of the situation. Some things they might look into are:
The CRA will take a complete view of everything they investigated and use that information to determine if they will approve or deny your principal residence exemption.
Technically, anybody could claim that a property they sold was their principal residence. That is why the CRA looks closely into these claims. If the CRA believes your statement may be untruthful, they may contact you to verify the details of your residency.
Contrary to your expectations, you can rent out your principal address and still receive the principal residence exemption. However, this depends on how many days you’ve rented a property out within a given year.
For example, many homeowners may rent their homes on a platform such as Airbnb while on vacation. In this case, you may still be eligible to receive the principal residence exemption. However, if your home is primarily rented to long-term tenants, then you won't receive the principal residence exemption for that year.
Since 1982, the CRA has only allowed taxpayers to claim one principal residence per tax year. Even if you own multiple properties, you can only claim one as your primary residence.
You can select a home in many countries as a principal residence. For example, you could have a primary residence listed in Puerto Rico or another Caribbean country. As long as you stay in the home more often than you rent it out, it should be eligible for the principal residence tax exemption.
This tax exemption is a great incentive for Canadians to purchase real estate for themselves and their families. However, not everybody is truthful regarding how they report their recently sold homes.
If the CRA has reason to suspect that the property you sold may have been an investment property (as opposed to a principal residence), then you would be required to pay capital gains tax on any profits you made from the sale of the property. This can be determined even after receiving a principal residence exemption in the past.
Christopher Liew is a CFA Charterholder and former financial advisor. He writes personal finance tips for thousands of daily Canadian readers on his Wealth Awesome website.
Do you have a question, tip or story idea about personal finance? Please email us at dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
Barnacles, bright yellow devices used to make sure parking scofflaws pay their tickets, could soon be making their way to cities across Canada.
An Airbnb in Montreal's Verdun borough was the source of much frustration from neighbours who say there were constant parties at the location. It has been taken down from the app, but housing advocates remain upset about short-term rentals.
A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former U.S. President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said.
He decided to spend Christmas somewhere that wouldn't involve snowstorm disasters. She was spending the holidays with family, travelling for the first time outside of her native country of Venezuela. 23 years later, they're still in love.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
A Nigerian chess champion and child education advocate played chess nonstop for 60 hours in New York City's Times Square to break the Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon.
RCMP say the fire that prompted a state of emergency in a Labrador town is now under control.
Thirteen victims of the Columbine High School shooting were remembered during a vigil Friday on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the shooting that was the worst the nation had seen at the time.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.