Didn't work in Vancouver. Adding extra ~1% percentage tax is peanuts for the opportunity to park your money in safe heaven country.

There are numbers larger than 1.

Prove it!

2.

That's because no properties are empty. The owner's nephew, a Canadian Citizen thanks to birth tourism, has the condo his uncle bought registered as his residence.

Converting property taxes to being calculated from unimproved value [0] accomplishes the same goal, while also removing disincentives on development and improvement.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

Vacancy taxes tend to only hit the wealthy. There are certainly regressive taxes we should examine (like sales tax on staple goods) but vacancy taxes tend to target high earners pretty effectively.

Taxes are generally a good thing since they allow society to function well.

Vacancy taxes exclusively hurt the wealthy who aren't renting out their land. That should help the less wealthy who don't have idle land.

Richer people own more property than poor people. You're using an old saw that says taxation is worse for the poor but it's not. It's also simple to give breaks for purchases under x dollars or redemptions or for family homes that are occupied etc.

> an old saw that says taxation is worse for the poor

Is there one? Consumption taxes on are of course worse for the poor, but taxes on fiefdoms?

Are there a lot of poor people leaving property they own vacant?

Sure, there are a bunch of corporate people who live in PO boxes in Delaware or Wyoming with no income who own vacant properties. Wouldn't want to burden those poor folks.