Liveinnercity Real Estate

Imagine a tax on your Calgary home that comes due every year you own it, not when you sell. That is the home equity tax proposal worth understanding before it gains traction.

A CMHC-funded working group, Generation Squeeze, floated an annual surtax on home value above $1 million: 0.2% from $1 million to $1.5 million, 0.5% on the next slice, and 1% above $2 million. It is described as deferrable, but deferral is not forgiveness. It works like a lien on your equity, collected when you sell, downsize, or settle an estate. One estimate pegged the annual take at $5.8 billion.

This is not law, and the principal-residence exemption still stands. But in Calgary the line moves fast. Britannia, Bel-Aire, and Elbow Park are already past $2 million; Mount Royal and Roxboro sit well over $1 million.

If a tax applies to money you have not made on a home you have not sold, how much do you really own it?

Every Alberta stereotype people joke about? Which one surprises you? 🤠

Chinook winds once swung the temperature 41 degrees Celsius in under an hour, the Canadian record set at Pincher Creek in 1962. Alberta holds roughly 43% of Canada's cattle, the largest share of any province. The Calgary Stampede generated $721 million in economic output across Alberta, per MNP. And Calgary was ranked the world's friendliest city by Condé Nast Traveller, scoring 97.81.

For anyone weighing a move here, that reads like a lifestyle brochure.