The federal tax and ownership rules that decide what a Canadian property actually costs to buy, hold and sell, quoted from the statutes and the Canada Revenue Agency with section numbers and dates.
On 1 April 2026 Toronto raised its municipal land transfer tax on every portion of price above $3 million. Here are the old and new bands side by side, and the dollar difference at each price point.
The complete Ontario and Toronto land transfer tax tables as they stand after the 1 April 2026 increase, with combined totals worked out at every luxury price point.
Your assessed value and your market value are different numbers built for different purposes. Here is what Current Value Assessment actually drives, including the vacant home tax, and when to care about it.
The Excise Tax Act excludes from residential complex status a building where all or substantially all arrangements are for periods under 60 days — and the exemption for selling a used residential complex then has nothing to attach to. Three different thresholds in three statutes, and the section 67.7 deduction denial that overrides the normal reassessment limits.
Section 215(6) makes a person who fails to withhold liable for the whole 25% of gross rent themselves, plus a 10% penalty and compound daily interest. The 2026 amendment relieved residential tenants but expressly not agents. The deadlines, the late-remitting scale, and why form NR6 shifts risk onto the property manager.
Section 45(1) deems a disposition at fair market value when a home becomes a rental or a rental becomes a home. The 45(2) and 45(3) elections defer it, the four-year limit sits in section 54 rather than section 45, section 54.1 extends it only on strict employer-relocation conditions, and section 45(4) deems a 45(3) election never made if any CCA was claimed.
The CRA stated on 5 March 2026 that it does not expect bare trusts to file for taxation years ending in 2025, and the legislation now matches: the old rule was repealed for years ending after 30 December 2024 and the new narrower rule applies only to years ending after 30 December 2026. What a bare trust is in a real estate context, and why the coming carve-outs do not cover investment property.
New sections 1.1 and 6.1 of the Underused Housing Tax Act remove both the tax and the filing requirement for 2025 and later years. But the Act is not repealed until 1 January 2035, and Budget 2025 states that all requirements, penalties and interest continue to apply for 2022 to 2024. The penalty minimums, and the ones the CRA’s own hub page has not caught up with.
The prohibition applies only inside census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations, does not apply to vacant land since 27 March 2023, and does not apply to buildings of four or more dwelling units. The current expiry date and the instrument that set it, the full exception list, and the $10,000 fine that reaches anyone who knowingly assists.
