China’s 1 Percent Flock to Canada | Hacker News Reader

China’s 1 Percent Flock to Canada

nytimes.com

58 pointsilamont103 comments

Big cities always have rich kids.

There is an undercurrent of racism in this article and in Vancouverites' attitudes towards rich kids from asia.

We tend to think of these kids through a lens where we think of our own childhoods and imagine adding enormous wealth. "Just like my childhood except add a $150,000 car allowance".

This is often not the case though. These kids can experience very difficult childhoods. Sent to a foreign country to attend boarding school, or live with a nanny in a big empty house. Hostile, often racist citizens all around them, and people constantly critical of their wealth. (how can you blame a 17 year old for having rich parents?)

I grew up in Vancouver with many kids like these around me. The vast majority of them are good, decent, friendly people who frankly have a tough time in their circumstance.

There is also a certain self-fulfulling prophecy in the whole dynamic, where hostile (often racist) Vancouverites immediately throw scorn all over these kids and their families... and then when they graduate and leave people say "see, they just came here to get an education and make a quick buck from the housing market". Well perhaps if we were less hostile and more welcoming, it would be a different story, and better for everyone including the local economy.

You mean the kids are suffering from affluenza?

no I mean the kids are suffering from instant hostility due to some combination of (a) racism (b) more general zenophobia (c) hatred because of their family's wealth

it's unfair to treat these kids badly

be welcoming and supportive and you will be surprised at what you will learn about the world and about yourself

Oh absolutely. Often I hear people say that racism is a problem of the past and that our children are not racist.

Well, I think the problem just shifts. It never really ends. I've heard accounts right here in New Jersey where children shout racist slurs from the windows of their speeding school buses at my friends from India. How would those kids feel if someone yelled racist slurs at them?

I think we are all racists to some extent. However, I think most of us are tactful enough to not just yell out slurs for no reason at bystanders. It is sometimes easy to look at one's children and think "Oh they are so wonderful. I am sure they are not rotten to the core."

Middle school was terrible even though (thankfully) I was not attacked based on race. Children are evil and mean. They will attack each other with whatever they can find. Children have no problem being hypocritical. They will yell racist slurs and will complain when someone yells racist slurs at them.

So, another version of "it's all white people's fault", then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

I think it's also unfair to completely ignore the social impact that this growing and highly wealthy immigration (and subsequent disproportionate spending) has had on the generations of people who have lived in Vancouver and now find many important things getting more expensive and out of reach in the span of a relatively short period of time.

This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, but more pragmatically has to do with "outsiders" arriving and disrupting the local economy and social structure. I'm not saying it should be prevented, but you can't just say it's benign either.

If 37,000 rich people flocked to Vancouver from another part of Canada, and were mostly white, the majority of the issues being raised would remain the same.

Your anecdotal story about growing up around some of these kids is not invalid, but it ignores the larger social impact of recent events that have nothing to do with kids, but more to do with their parents' money.

agreed

I've lived in Vancouver for 4 years (originally from France) and the depiction of "Hostile, often racist citizens" all around them is frankly a stretch.

I am not denying that some of that exists, but in a city where like 30% of the population is of Asian descent and where the rest of the population is mostly composed of welcoming and good-natured Canadians, I feel like you're painting with quite the broad brush there.

Well after enough of these NYT front-page articles stoking the flames of xenophobia, this may change.

Absolutely true, I'm still deep in love with Vancouver and every bit of news catches my attention and recently it's been a lot about Chinese people stealing houses, ruining the housing market, this and that. Makes me sad.

Perhaps, if an individual doesn't want to be a victim of resentment and stereotyping, they shouldn't drive a $150,000 car?

Especially at an age where it's extremely unlikely for that individual to have accrued the necessary wealth themselves.

I think it's more appropriate to say that if the individual can have a $150,000 car at no cost, why on Earth would he/she give a shit what you think of him? I'd take the car and wouldn't hear your opinions of me or it over the engine.

Precisely what happens. And therein lies the problem.

I'm missing the part where this is a problem.

He doesn't have one.

It can be more nuanced than that. Some of these "rich kids" are brought up in an environment, or culture, where they simply don't expect ostenentatious displays of wealth (even by those who have apparently not earned the wealth themselves) to be met with these responses.

In any case, I think it's important to emphasize the individual has a choice.

No one is forcing these people to flaunt their wealth.

Driving that $150,000 car is a good thing. At the very least they don't hoard all their money.

Saving or investing ("hoarding" -- they're not keeping it under the mattress) is inherently ethically worse than consuming, without regards to what is being consumed or invested in? Really?

You're right. They could always invest in more housing.

A less tongue in cheeck answer: they usually don't invest more than half their savings.

Source: http://www.financialsamurai.com/why-the-rich-hoard-so-much-c...

It depends how you look at things.

You can look at it as mere circulation of money. And let's be clear, this is circulation of money, not redistribution of wealth (as they are merely exchanging one asset for another at market rate)

Alternatively, you could see it as this individual making a decision about what humanity should do with scarce resources.

Should we direct them towards helping those in need, or to manufacturing luxury automobiles?

With great wealth comes great responsibility.

The racism angle always comes up when we try to talk about this. I agree with you that the article is holding these people up as figures of hate, whether by their wealth or by their foreignness.

On the other hand, Vancouver already had a tradition of embracing immigrants from Asia. It's the only city in North America that's majority Asian. This is one of the main reasons that the Chinese elite send their children here in the first place. So I don't find it credible that Vancouver is a particularly racist place against Asian immigrants. My guess is that a segment of the "astronaut" kids (so-called because they are launched into a foreign country all alone) just make themselves hard to ignore.

You have a point that whatever blunders they may be making, the kids are mostly pawns. I actually called for a Reddit AMA from a Chinese "astronaut" kid in /r/vancouver, but nobody answered.

Do you think you could arrange something like that? Maybe it would increase understanding.

This article is part of a worrying acceptance in the popular media of xenophoboia and hatred of the wealthy.

> China’s rapid economic rise has turned peasants into billionaires. Many wealthy Chinese are increasingly eager to stow their families, and their riches, in the West, where rule of law, clean air and good schools offer peace of mind, especially for those looking to escape scrutiny from the Communist Party and an anti-corruption campaign that has sent hundreds of the rich and powerful to jail.

This whole article breeds condescension. Peasants? "Stow away their families"? Not to mention the the fact that Canada is one of the least corrupt countries in the world. Perhaps they are fortunate enough to seek a better life for themselves and their families free of political oppression.

There are two kinds of chinese immigrants these days. The ones looking for a better life in a more fair setting (they are going to work). The other ones have been incredibly successful in China, but much of their money is grey, and it is only a matter of time until they are made an example of by some anti corruption crackdown. The latter ones are China's one percent, they got rich by playing the system and going abroad is their escape/retirement plan. Not only that, but they aren't going to be paying income taxes (they have plenty of money already) and are just going to keep pumping money into housing, exporting China's insane property bubble.

No one here I think has a problem with working immigrants. In fact, it kind of sucks more for them because this is some of the fu'er'dai/red family unfairness that they were trying to get away from in the first place.

Denizens provide more to a country than just paying income taxes. I believe in immigration not as an attempt to maximize tax revenue and minimize by tax burden. But because an open accepting society and mobility is in the best interest of all humans.

These people have a massive amount of money that they basically stole from the rest of the country (and its environment) and now are trying to get it out while they can. China's GDP growth looks great until you realize how unevenly that growth occurred, and what the real cost was. And now they will basically use the west to protect those gains from being reclaimed when everyone realizes how bad the damage is. That sucks.

I have no problem with immigration. I'm almost an immigrant (ironically enough, in China). But I see the things that make life here so hard (unfairness, corruption) exported back to my home, you are damn right I'm not going to be happy about it.

China's poverty has fallen rather drastically over time, as it has throughout the rest of the world[0]. The ill begotten gains of the ultra wealthy are only so because of the state control. Perhaps you're getting upset at the symptoms rather than the cause.

[0] http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN

China's poverty has fallen, but there are still plenty of people living in dirt filled basements (there is an ant tribe even in my apartment building). The red families control around 40%+ of the economy, the air is unbreathable, the water is toxic, a crappy 90sqm apartment goes for $1 million.

China has a lot of wealth, if it was evenly divided, if more attention was paid to the environment, if laws were actually enforced consistently....it would already be a first world country. That it isn't is basically because of these people.

Most of the hate comes from people who got left out of the real estate price appreciation over the past 10 years in Vancouver.

There are a lot of Canadians, however, who benefited from a disproportionate increase in wealth over this period of time as well.

In fact, many people who have bought multiple homes in Vancouver have now amassed a fortune which would make any startup founder who just got bought out by Google blush.

It's sort of like being in the right place at the right time. Like if you just so happened to have owned a hardware shop and sold shovels when the gold rush happened.

Toronto will probably be the next to experience the insane price increases we've seen in Vancouver as the housing inventory there becomes more scarce.

I lived and worked in Vancouver for a couple of years at an engineering firm. Our IT guy was a consultant who worked for a few companies. He was Asian, but I believe he had been in Canada for a long time. Anyway, we were always amazed by the different fancy car he would arrive in each time he came to our office (Ferrari, Lambo, you name it). I know IT guys can make decent money, but you wouldn't have expected this kind of wealth. Based on what we knew about he him, we concluded that he must have made his wealth as you said, right place, right time, in the Vancouver real estate bull market. While I was there he "retired" while he looked to be in his late 40s.

I think a lot of pundits and observers don't quite realize that there are only a few places in the world where the top 1% rich immigrants from China and other countries can actually feel comfortable moving to.

Speaking only of Canada, Vancouver is one such place. Toronto is another.

The relative housing price increase in places like -- say, Halifax -- although has gone up, will not be like that of Vancouver's or Toronto's.

You need to follow the flow of money and the reason why there's the flow of money there. In this case, 1% of a very large population simply means there's going to be a lot of demand for flight to safety into Canadian real estate in Vancouver and Toronto -- two places where a lot of immigrants have already moved to.

It's sort of like trying to start a new social networking app... you need a network effect for the app to even reach critical mass. Vancouver/Toronto -- that's what happened there.

News flash: the rich are mobile, always have been.

Chinese are singled out by media because it plays on American whites' insecurity.

Maybe, but also because it is in Vancouver. You can find similar articles for London and Russians which are mostly white.

Couldn't agree more. Living in a college town a few years ago, visitors would always mention the sheer number of Chinese students around. Nevermind the fact that there were just as many students from India, European countries and other regions around every corner.

If they bring ambition, ideas and pay taxes, who cares? That is just my opinion, of course.

The two kinds of migration are very much part reason for the rich cultures we have in many places. I always suggest to check the local country's dictionary for the etymology of words. I don't understand how the caucasian-looking US population can claim to be the real Americans, ignoring that the US has been one of the richest mix of immigrants.

> I don't understand how the caucasian-looking US population can claim to be the real Americans, ignoring that the US has been one of the richest mix of immigrants.

You can't be serious. American history did not start in 1980. The vast majority of the US population throughout its history has been European-descended.

I suppose I don't consider the ex-citizens of one of the European royally rules countries to be the same, but there's surely some unifying traits like Christianity.

Maybe all non-European immigrants were only brought in as workers (and also slaves), so your argument may be right.

Let me rephrase then: The US has always been an immigration destination, so it's interesting that some immigrants are seen as different enough to be singled out. Spanish-speaking immigrants and Chinese arrived in US america much earlier than the famous NY around the turn of 20th century ships from Europe with Italians, Germans, Irish, Russians did.

I don't have numbers to cite, so I'll stop arguing more :).

> I suppose I don't consider the ex-citizens of one of the European royally rules countries to be the same, but there's surely some unifying traits like Christianity.

I don't either, but you did say "Caucasian-looking"...

A mass migration from any foreign culture (that is, highly different from the host culture) would be treated with alarm by the locals anywhere, in any country. It's not a phenomenon specific to the US. The US just happens to provide a particular historical instance of it. Vancouver seems to be providing us another.

It's not quite that - 富二代 bring their own particular problems.

1) The methods in which their parents attained their money. Most that I've met have been reticent to talk about the source of their parents wealth (as mentioned in the article).

A lot are speculated to have been involved in widescale corruption and theft of the country's wealth - this should really irritate you (I'm making the assumption that you're an overseas Chinese here, apologies if not)

2) Their spending behaviour is seen as nouveau-riche and trashy. Furthermore, they don't conform to the west's idea of "civilized" behaviour. This can be seen in the thousands of videos of mainland chinese tourists available on youtube. Whether the west is right or wrong, this sort of cultural difference is undoubtedly something worth talking about in the media, wouldn't you say?

3) Most of these kids never had any siblings or decent caregivers growing up to help them develop any kind of emotional intelligence, so they develop into "little emperors".

Often, their parents enable these kind of behaviours, like in the example of Xu Yichun - the kid who caused a death and several serious injuries with reckless driving - his parents immediately paid his $2 million bail and tried to get him out of the country.

4) A lot of them make absolutely no attempt to integrate. Whether you consider this a negative depends on your perspective, but it definitely does irritate a lot of people. I've met Chinese masters' students at top 3 universities who can't string together a coherent written or spoken sentence.

I'm aware some of these things are not specifically Chinese, but suggesting they're actively singled out is untrue. Anyone who's spent a lot of time among chinese international students in the US or UK must see at least some aspect of these issues.

1) Wealth cannot be "stolen", it doesn't belong to the country, it belongs to the individual. Unless it's the Government's money that's just called "spending."

Edit: I'm referring to the idea frequently spoken by Trump supporters, that somehow wealth created in a given country must be kept in that country. It's nonsense. Wealth (tied to individuals anyway) should be as free to move as those individuals. It isn't tied to any given country or state therefore they have no sway in what happens to it or what it's used for beyond the obvious legalities such as importing contraband, smuggling, that sort of thing.

2) Relativistic standards in different places. This is Xenophobia at it's finest. "You didn't spend your money like I would, therefore you are dumb/scary/silly/stupid."

3) As if any parent in the West wouldn't try to do the same damn thing for their kid if they got in trouble in a foreign country. Hell I've seen parents defending their children in courtrooms in the same country. It's a lot harder to condemn your own offspring to jail time than most people think.

4) Who cares? It's not your money, they're paying stupid tax to send their children to universities they can't complete and possibly spending enough of it to get some stupid piece of paper telling them how smart their kids are. Not going to help them when mom and dad are gone.

This whole article and topic reeks of people who haven't heard the phrase "mind your own business" enough.

You are in a fantasy world. Fraud, corruption and dodging taxes are some of the ways massive weath was created. Read Sean mcdirmonds comments above. Canada doesn't tax assets ... if u stole money in China and managed to bring it into Canada, what taxes did you pay? The paltry property and sales taxes? Also, it is an uneven playing field .. if I stop paying taxes, I'll go to jail. How is this right?

The wealthy act rationally, if you could hide your assets from the Tax man don't tell me you wouldn't. The fact that you're incapable of doing it doesn't mean other people can't.

If there are loopholes, they will be exploited. The solution is to fix the damn loopholes.

In a democracy, people talk and complain to get ineffective laws changed. My fear is that if the government doesn't act soon, the backlash will be against all immigrants. Just like the idiots are vilyfing 1% of the highest income earners.

Wealth can totally be stolen, by taking tax money, by pooping on the environment, by pumpin and dumping in stocks or real estate. Then there are scams, prostitution, all sorts of illegal ways of making money, but most of it is like: government sells X to connected family member really cheap. Corruption reeks.

You're citing actual crimes to make your case. Taking your wealth to another country and buying things is not a crime, it's commerce. The origin of said wealth is irrelevant to the Lamborghini dealer, if that person writing the check is polluting or insider trading or whatever then that is a separate issue.

Uhm, no, money laundering laws are quite clear that taking I'll gotten wealth is a crime, but fancy getting any of that information from China. We could just stop with greedy immigration policies that are oriented around milking money from other countries, and focus on human capital instead. After all, those ill gotten slips of paper are just going to feed into asset bubbles, whereas scientist and engineers can actually create real value.

That's not the whole story.

1) America has always had a fascination for the new rich. Rags to riches is the old story. In pop culture, there are entire romance book series about new rich Americans going back to England to find titled husbands for the young ladies, and then on the "modern" side, entire series about romance with billionaires. Americans love thinking about new money, regardless of who's got it. Look at other NYTimes stories about Russians and real estate in New York.

2) Chinese students (and their money) are having a real impact in American higher ed, and a lot of people are exposed to that. Foreign students are an important revenue stream, and Chinese students simply outnumber Swedes, Germans, South Africans, Saudis, etc. And when your students drive Mercedes-Benz SUVs while you are climbing into your used 2008 vehicle, you do eventually notice. (It took me 3 years to notice but I finally did figure out 28 of my students are richer than I am at half the age!)

3) Last is the insecurity. White Americans are particularly insecure because they are failing calculus because they can't add fractions while the (Chinese) kid next to them is driving a car worth the entire year's tuition payment, and can add fractions with ease. That is intimidating. Things weren't supposed to be this way! Being well-off, white, and American is supposed to be a free pass to a good future! That's why the ancestors of well-off white Americans worked toward all three goals (make money, get to America, be declared white).

This is an excellent article on the subject: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/chinas-rich-kid...

The article mentioned that the immigrant investor program is defunct, that's not entirely true. Québec still has it but they never stay in Montreal just move to Vancouver.

that's because it's Montreal.

Vancouver is a better city in terms of weather and the scenery.

If by better you mean "less cold", sure. Not everyone is afraid of cold.

There's a huge population of Chinese and descendants of American-Chinese from the US rail road and gold digging days in Vancouver, so it kinda makes sense for them to concentrate there. But is it Canada only and not also San Francisco and similar locations of Chinese population on that continent?

1% of 1.357 billion people is about thirteen and a half million people.

Time for me to stop reading headlines literally.

As long as they pay their taxes, what's the problem?

Maybe the gentrification is an issue, but you either have a free market or not. Deciding to not sell real estate to foreigners wouldn't fly with the rest of the world.

Until recently, the reverse (foreigners buying property in China) was illegal. I believe it's still problematic, company ownership requires a local partner, and there are capital controls.

This is naive. We don't have a free market in real estate at all:

1. banks can create credit at will and do so primarily against land

2. planning is tightly controlled

3. taxes on land are insufficient to counteract 1 given 2

4. the state underwrites land prices via subsidies

Land is finite (even in Canada) due to constraints on infrastructure / topology. Not controlling ownership of a vital resource is IMHO nuts.

We don't have a free market in anything.

Right on .. racism is wrong and what is also wrong is taxation and policies that discriminates against people who earn their living through employment income. We need to rethink this soon else I fear a general hatred towards capital and investment more generally (also wrong IMHO). We need to simply start taxing assets and luxury goods. It is a simple fix.

We should be blaming our establishment and the banks, not Chinese kids.

I agree taxing rentiers is the way forward. Will Canada do this? I don't see Trudeau doing it, but Canada did have a land value tax party that gained quite a bit of popularity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Canada

> In Vancouver LVT became the sole form of municipal taxation in 1910 under the leadership of mayor

But that was when people understood the system better as opposed to now when they think banks are creating wealth when they create money which absorbs wealth.

EDIT: replying here to turnip1979 as throttled by HN who hate talking about Land value tax and the banks being leeches

-----

Perhaps. In the UK this week our Chancellor and Prime Minister had to disclose their tax records.

They both earn more (if you include the part they pay to their wives to avoid tax) from rent from their main London property than they get paid.

I'm afraid there has been a coup and one usually doesn't get too far writing letters to the new overlords.

I think we need to talk about the issue so that our representatives learn to differentiate between professionals who earn employment income and the ultrarich who hold the majority of assets. The central banks are refusing to even acknowledge inflation and the real estate bubble in front of our faces.

That's the whole point of anger towards them. Thats dirty money. That's money laundering. They don't pay income/corporate tax in Canada.

It seems incredible racist to assume that all Chinese money is dirty money and/or money laundering. Sure, some of it is, but China is also the world's factory - we pay them to manufacture stuff, that provides them with money legitimately. It might not be evenly distributed among the population, but that isn't the case in the US either.

>money legitimately

You're completly ignoring the massive subsidies and currency devaluation to keep this scheme going. If we didn't have import tariffs all our local industries would get destroyed because nobody can compete with someone who sells their goods below manufacturing costs for decades.

They're not earning their money in Canada, so what's that got to do with the Canadian tax system? Whether or not they pay tax in China is China's problem, just the same as with any other money transferred from abroad.

If I retire and moved to Canada with $10m (I wish), how much tax would I have to pay at the border? Would it matter which country I'm moving from?

As a resident Canadian citizen (or permanent resident, or someone with a work permit) you are, generally speaking, supposed to pay Canadian taxes on earnings made abroad. IANATL, but I guess if your income comes from parents who live abroad you can get around most income taxes?

Another issue is that some of these rich kids usually don't integrate and have no desire to do so. They just milk the system. I studied at UBC. You will be surprised how many students can't speak basic conversational English.

This is exactly the sort of argument made against Italians, Irish, and numerous others that have come to the U.S. It's pretty gross.

Pointing out that some of these students - not only limited to Chinese - do not integrate is not the same as being racist. That's quite a hyperbole.

But do they have to learn the local language when they don't plan to stay there indefinitely?

Interestingly for the most part these European immigrants refused to teach their children born in the USA their native languages because they were that concerned with integration.

I think it is sad that languages were not passed on but it seems that later waves of immigrants or even some groups as a whole (e.g.: Chinese, Latin Americans) are more concerned about preserving their native languages in their new country.

I went to school with kids from HK who arrived and didn't speak English very well. After a short time their English improved substantially, and after a couple of years, frankly, many of them could write essays with better grammar than many of the caucasian native English speakers in the class.

Instead of criticizing immigrants for being different, how about we welcome them, support them, and make a better home for everyone.

Part of the reason it appears that they don't want to "integrate" is because so many people around them are instantly hostile.

Be welcoming and you will be surprised at what you will learn about the world (and about yourself).

I am the product of immigration as well so I am not sure how anything I said makes it seem like I was not welcoming. Pointing out that there are issues with integration is not the same thing as being a racist. Has our discourse come to a level that one can't even talk about these things?

    Pointing out that there are issues with integration
    is not the same thing as being a racist

It's interesting to note that @plg didn't use the word "racist".

No, but plg did refer to the locals as "caucasians" before calling them hostile and unwelcoming.

Isn't there a lot more more to being a citizen of a country than paying one's taxes? Nothing about integrating into a community? A country is not an economy.

Let's put it this way... if I were a (white) billionaire, and a few hundred of my richest friends and I moved to China and started buying up real estate in a major city and flaunting our wealth all over the place, how do you think the locals would receive us?

Actually, being Chinese they will probably like you alot ...

Um, that is essentially what happened about 100 years ago. A few differences though... The europeans brought along lots of armed guards and demanded China's laws didn't apply to them. Obviously, there was some friction.

Are you describing Hong Kong?

Sounds like the Boxer rebellion

Yes, among other locations (Hong Kong, Canton, Amoy, Shanghai, etc.). I was describing the various "treaty ports" that were established following the Opium Wars, which were essentially a series of wars fought by the west to allow the import of illegal drugs into China. The major western powers forced China into providing land and extra-territorial rights to westerners in China.

The Chinese still remember this era quite vividly and describe it as the "Century of Humiliation".

There's more to paying taxes, there's obeying laws. As a canadian, I'll cite our current Prime Minister's father: http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/omnibus-bill-theres-no-plac...

Pay taxes, obey laws, & let your kids be friends with any kids who aren't trouble at school. I don't care after that

Given that Vancouver is about half Asian, integrating into the community should not be overly difficult for Chinese people.

I think for Vancouver dwellers the problem is taxes need to be land value tax not income tax.

Land tax is certainly much harder to avoid - there is a reason the 0.01% hate land taxes.

Build vertically?

Then you add value without taking up more space. This would reduce the cost of a human requirement: shelter.

This is what LVT is for. Our present system is about maximising the availability of credit to absorb all spare capacity. This is why we are working full time despite massive productivity improvements. This is why when women entered the labour force it was all absorbed by land prices.

The 1% in the main don't want to "build vertically". They want to do nothing and have you work and give them a cut of their income. I'm fine with people making life better and getting a cut.

ps this may be the last comment I can make as HN hates LVT and any criticism of rentiers

That does not help you avoid a land tax ;)

We will know the 0.01% are losing the class war when a serious land tax is introduced. I personally don't see it happening anytime soon.

It does to an extent because you are taxed on the land not the improvement. You are not taxed more for having more living area.

I agree with you LVT and it's over for the banks and the rentiers. We will have to fight them to the end for this, it is the end for them so they will throw everything at it.

There wouldn't be, if that were the case.[3]

As the article mentioned, many individuals are 'gifted' items from family members still residing in China. How do you tax somebody that has no official income? (aside from the tax one purchase itself, which isn't what I think you're referring to). Such tax avoidance schemes aren't unheard of[1].

What adds the contention and frustrations of residents is the foreign investments in real-estate, which, in Vancouver and Toronto specifically, are driving the costs above what they can realistically afford. Again, it's not unheard of for the foreign investors to be using the real estate as tax avoidance in their own country[2], at the cost of the local citizens quality of living.

[1] - http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/kpmg-offshore-sham-deceived-... [2] - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/a-crisis-in-vancouver...

[3] - ninja edit - I'm not trying to categorically say none of those mentioned in the articles pay taxes! Of course that's not the case! What I'm trying to communicate is, those who aren't and are avoiding paying taxes, are the ones causing issues for local residents and what the focus of these articles I've mentioned.

Sounds like there's need for catching (maybe with new laws) tax evasion as described.

But at the very least they will consume stuff and pay taxes there. I guess their stay is more like a prolonged vacation of some sort.

No doubt some of the tax evasion needs to be caught (where possible while maintaining a free market, I'm aware that may be a false dichotomy). However, there is little hope of anything being done in regards to the real estate situation given the state of Canada's current economy[1]. There's no incentive for the current governments (federal or provincial) to curb the trend.

[1] - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-29/canada-s-o...

That's the problem. They're not [1].

In fact, refugees are paying more in taxes than millionaire immigrants of the now defunct investor program [2].

[1] - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/the-market/foreig...

[2] - http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/refugees-pay-more-income-tax...

They could cap the numbers at so many thousand and then have the state build that many new homes. Stop the accommodation problems and make some money for the government from the property development.

from peasants to billionaires.. new money with some of the worst tastes.. that's why the tackiest luxury brands are selling like hot cakes in China..

Buying a BMW is not sufficient, it has to be a BMW not made in China, otherwise, it's considered a step down..

Don't forget the pink matte sticker paint job to go with new new BMW or Mercedes. The worst is one someone goes for a gold or chrome paint job on a Ferrari, they are always parked outside of Gongti night clubs in Beijing.

Oh so now they've started to compete the Emiratis for the tackiest in the world?

No idea, I only no Beijing tackiness. Though given the license plate lottery EV preference, I've been seeing a few more Teslas on the road lately, without the tacky paint jobs.

beijing traffic is like the worst nightmare one can imagine, and this was me visiting in 2011...

it's such a bad place to live.

They make BMWs in China?

Yes.. all foreign automakers must have a partnership with a chinese company in order to setup operations within China. So you have Chinese built VW, Buicks, Audi, BMW... etc.. The rear badge would have some chinese characters to indicate the city where it was built or the joint parternship http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/brilliance_new_ene...

Ah. So similar maybe to how 60% of a Toyota is actually made in the USA?

well built by works in another country yes.. that part is the same..

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