Province appoints five auditors to enforce foreign buyer tax, number NDP calls ‘laughably low’

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – How many auditors would you hire to enforce the province’s foreign buyer tax?

The finance ministry is hiring five — a number the NDP is calling laughably low.

“That’s not even enough auditors to audit the Trump Tower, which clearly needs to be audited after the developer was quoted saying that he was helping buyers in that building assign their properties to permanent residents and citizens [to dodge the tax],” says NDP housing critic David Eby.

“I think that at a minimum, the government should be looking in the tens of auditors, not in the single digits of auditors. We also need auditors for money laundering, tax evasion. I mean, four to five auditors — that seems like a joke.”

Given the amounts of real estate deals which are done every month, Eby says five people simply can’t be depended on to properly scrutinize the volume of transactions, especially given the complexity of some of these agreements.

“I think it’s critically important to understand that some of the financial arrangements that we’ve seen in the media, especially the Globe and Mail recently, are quite sophisticated,” says Eby.

“Involving people who appear on title and beneficial agreements underneath, and numbered companies and all kinds of ways of getting around tax rules in British Columbia. Clearly, auditors are going to need the time to get at that and understand the financial dealings of some of these folks…I have trouble understanding how the finance minister thinks four to five auditors are going to get to this.”

Before the tax fully came into place, Premier Christy Clark said the province had an audit team “ready to go.”

Following Finance Minister Mike de Jong’s first quarter fiscal update, he was asked about the number of auditors assigned to enforce the 15 percent levy, and stated “four or five,” but didn’t appear to know whether or not they had officially started in their new role.

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