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Q: Is there any real estate investment I could invest my capital gains in, without being robbed of paying 50% capital gains tax?
I understand there is an exception for the sale of commercial property.
—Dennis
A: One of the biggest deterrents I’ve observed with real estate investors is the dreaded capital gains tax hit. Your disdain, Dennis, is widespread.
Stock market investors don’t seem to be as patient. Real estate is generally a long-term hold, while stock turnover tends to be more frequent. Real estate investors often end up with larger capital gains as well because real estate is such a focused investment, worth as much or more than many investors’ stock portfolios.
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If a rental real estate investor has claimed depreciation, also known as capital cost allowance (CCA), all past CCA gets “recaptured” and taxed in the year of sale in addition to capital gains tax payable.
A capital gain, Dennis, is 50% taxable. I want to clarify this because you referred to paying 50% capital gains tax…

Canada’s financial consumer watchdog says there are “insufficient” controls in place at the country’s biggest banks to prevent sales of financial products that are misrepresented or unsuitable for consumers, and the banks’ sales-focused culture elevates the risk that employees may flout consumer protection rules.

Mike Diddy, at his home in the lee of Vancouver’s Skytrain tracks (Photo: Jennifer Osborne)
Kevin Royes lives the Vancouver real estate economy.  At the end of a long day landscaping at a newly-built 18,000-square-foot mansion in West Vancouver, he catches a ride home to his 1973 Dodge Sportsman in a pop-up RV park tucked away in an East Vancouver industrial area.
He is one of a number of construction industry workers illegally camped within sight of downtown high-rises, which on a sunny afternoon gleam in the distance like unattainable beacons of wealth.
There are about 20 inhabited vehicles parked beneath the Skytrain line near Glen Drive. But in Vancouver and North Vancouver, where rents are among Canada’s highest and vacancy rates less than one per cent, there are at least seven other pockets where people live full-time in vehicles tucked behind shopping malls or big box stores. Some, like Royes and Mike Diddy, whose home is a converted school bus, are employed in the region’s booming construction trade…

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Election season is the time for politicians to throw out outlandish proposals to see what sticks. So it’s not entirely surprising that Ontario PC leader Doug Ford mused recently about abolishing the 15 per cent non-resident buyer tax on real estate, which was introduced last year by the Liberal government. But not only is such a move likely to win little popular support, it could also start re-inflating a housing bubble that policymakers have struggled to control.
“I just don’t like the government getting involved,” Ford told the Globe and Mail. “I believe in the market dictating. The market, no matter whether it’s the stock market or anything, it will always take care of itself—supply and demand.” 
It’s a puzzling statement. “How that can possibly be a top priority, especially given very compelling evidence that said tax played a huge role in deflating the Toronto housing bubble in the past year, is a mystery,” wrote BMO chief economist Doug Porter in a recent note to clients…