After a 2.5 year long battle with the CRA (Canadas version of IRS) where they tried to charge us for the HST value of the land we built a laneway home on (although no transaction every happened and we can never subdivided or sell that portion) - we now finally settled!!! They sent a new assessor to the house 3 weeks ago who actually had a very realistic view of the situation (and how the crazy land values of Vancouver create huge penalties for individuals taking on this endeavor the City of Vancouver is endorsing - their initial assessment resulted in HST owed of $50K!?). The new assessment and settlement puts us back in the right side of the equation of not owing anything and a giant gorilla off our backs! Sanity finally prevailed after a long stressful period - and thanks to Jake and the team at Smallworks Studios & Laneway Housing for their support through this process. We had reached out to the City, MPs office, local media, Canadian Home Builders Association....all to no avail. It finally took us getting the right person in the CRA to review the case with a realistic understanding of the situation. Lesson to future laneway home builders in regions with over inflated land values - dont apply for the GST grant as it opens a crazy can of worms of what they call a self assessment that ties in a land value formula. Paula Blanchet - time for a celebration dinner out on the town!
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:47:30 +0000
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