This article doesn't seem particularly coherent. At one point it claims these taxes are not a meaningful way to generate revenue, and then goes on to say the t

This article doesn't seem particularly coherent. At one point it claims these taxes are not a meaningful way to generate revenue, and then goes on to say the tax in Vancouver generated C$84M over two years instead of an estimated C$4M. I guess they want to say that C$84M is such a meaningless amount to Vancouver it's not even worth collecting? That seems like a stretch. Then it goes on to say it hasn't done much. Yet they themselves say it has reduced the group of identified problems by 25%. If anything the important part here seems that the problem group was small in the first place. However how does that fit in with the fact the tax ended up producing over 20x the expected revenue? They also point out other instances where the tax has apparently made substantial changes but not enough changes. This includes the vacancy rate going from 0.3% to 0.8%, instead of a hoped-for 5%. That's still more than double the original rate. They also say a large number of homes qualify for exemptions from the tax. Another implementation in Melbourne is apparently not enforced well in the first place. And the problem continues to exist in both places, of course. Somehow their conclusion is that the entire idea is not worth pursuing. I don't see how. The tax in Vancouver seems to substantially change behavior and raised substantially more money than expected which is earmarked for government programs dealing with the problem. There are also apparently many exceptions which seem like good avenues to use to skirt the tax, and it seems likely to be worth closing those loopholes. As for Melbourne, I don't even know what to say about it. How are we supposed to conclude that an unenforced measure is entirely the wrong kind of idea because it hasn't changed anything? It wasn't enforced, so how could it have? Articles like this one are the kind of thing that convinces people to begin to outright ignore a source. It's one thing to have a usual angle and tend towards it while presenting a fair and coherent picture of the situation. It's another to shove out this drivel that doesn't even appear to be a good-faith analysis.