Finance Ministry can use personal info collected for speculation tax, ruling finds

The Finance Ministry can collect, use and disclose the personal information of those who fill out their speculation and vacancy tax declarations, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) found in a recent ruling.

Adjudicator Erika Syrotuck looked into the matter after the OIPC received a pair of complaints about the extent of information the ministry had been demanding from property owners. That information included names, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses and social insurance (SIN) numbers.

For Vancouver Island man Mark Atherton, who wrote a formal complaint submission, the province was simply demanding too much.

“I was most concerned about my personal information being coerced out of me,” he said.

Atherton referenced a ministry figure that more than 99.8 per cent of British Columbians are exempt from the tax. And because he counts himself among those who aren’t impacted by it, he said his initial thought about the process was: “Well, why are you buggin’ me?” But as Atherton looked further into the matter, he became increasingly concerned about the ministry “mining ” tax information for details on housing.

“The only reason the government should be looking at our tax returns is because they need to confirm we’ve reported all our income,” he said.

The ministry chose to ask for SIN information because they were “the least privacy-invasive way of determining and verifying a property owner’s identity,” according to B.C.’s submission.

The ministry further argued that it needed SIN info to determine the residency status of declarants, among other things.

Atherton argued there were alternative approaches to identifying targeted property owners “without impacting the great majority who are exempt,” and attached as an appendix an article that ran in The Vancouver Sun earlier this year that had explored some of those ideas.

But Syrotuck said it wasn’t relevant that the province “could have chosen to structure the tax in a different way.”

Finance Minister Carole James said in a written statement that her department was committed to protecting personal information, and said she was cautiously optimistic that the tax was “contributing to the ongoing moderation we’re starting to see in B.C.’s housing market.”

The only reason the government should be looking at our tax returns is because they need to confirm we’ve reported all our income.

MARK ATHERTON

Atherton said he believed the adjudicator “did a fairly good job” with the ruling, but he did have concerns with it. The only avenue of appeal that remains at this point is a judicial review, he said. But Atherton said he had already put a lot of commitment into the matter and couldn’t justify paying for legal help to pursue it further.

“But if somebody else out there felt strongly enough that they wanted to provide those legal services I’d say, ‘come on, I’d love your help,’ ” he said.

The province introduced the speculation and vacancy tax last year in a bid to put financial pressure on “people who are treating our housing market like a stock market,” as James put it then.

It is applied to properties that are not primary residences or occupied by tenants.