How to Use the Family Property Tax Deferral - Canada

http://MortgagesInVancouver.com
Hi, everyone. How are you? It's Leah Coss with The Mortgage Centre. There's a crazy amount of frogs out my window here, so please ignore the ribbiting. But I wanted to talk about the brand new, something that the government is implementing as of the tax year starting July first of 2010, the property tax deferral program for families. I wanted to just explain, briefly, what it is, when it has to be paid, and how it all works. Well, there are certain requirements for this program. What it's allowing you to do is take your property taxes for that year, July 1st, 2010, for the full tax year, and defer it. Defer is the key word. This is not a credit. It's not a rebate. It is a deferral. So this is for don't pay now, pay later. All right? That really needs to be clear.
Now, there's some criteria that you have to meet before you can actually apply for this tax deferral. One is that you must have a child in the home under the age of 18 during that tax year. It must be done on the home that you're currently living in. You must have 15 percent equity within that home. You need fire insurance. Oh, you must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and you must have lived in BC for at least one year before you apply for that program. All right? So those are some of the criteria that you need for this program.
Now, when does it have to be paid back? Well, when the property is sold, if the ownership is transferred, or if it becomes a part of an estate. So that's kind of nice. However, you must be aware that if you decide to defer your taxes, like with any type of loan or deferral, interest is going to be charged. And that interest will be set semiannually, from what I understand, and it'll be set at whatever prime rate is. So not a bad rate, so long as prime remains were it is, but you need to know that interest will be accruing on this, so you won't necessarily want to leave that deferred for 10 years.
So, hopefully that answers your questions. It was a pretty quick blog post, kind of cut and dry. But this is just for this year, as far as I know. I haven't heard anything about this being an ongoing program that they're going to offer. But for 2010, starting July first, this is something you can look forward to. If you're a family facing hard times and you need to defer some payments, your property taxes can be one of them. But I don't recommend this for everyone to do just for the sake of doing it.
All right? So if you have any questions, of course, as always, my contact info is on the website. I'm Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center, and you can reach me seven days a week. I'm always happy to help.
Thanks so much.
http://MortgagesInVancouver.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• tax deferral program
• property taxes
• tax deferral
• family tax deferral
• government tax deferral
• government program
• family government program
• mortgage broker
• leah coss
• canada