2014-2-20

商业地产租赁的TMI是否可加税（taxable）？

因为去年花过挺长时间在商业地产的租赁上，来来回回的条款研究了无数遍，最后连律师都以为我是搞这个的了。其实我只是个门外汉，只是比较细心点看合同条款很认真就是。而经纪一般签完offer也就基本不管了，因为说合同是律师的事情。而律师这里可是分秒都收费的，于是自己看合同也是非常重要的。

华人的经纪很多，但是很多都只做民居，并不大做商业地产的租赁和销售。

所以对TMI有个误区，以为TMI已经是含税的。其实不是的。

首先TMI是什么意思？

TMI is a term used in the Real estate industry to mean Real Estate Taxes, Maintenance and Insurance. This is a mechanism to gauge the level of operations in the real estate industry. It is also a way of the government to consolidate its revenue.

因为很多人看到TMI里已经包含了Taxes了，就以为说TMI是含税的。TMI包括地税，维护费，和保险这三部分。一般ＴＭＩ也是按照每平尺来计算的，比如＄6.5/sq.ft的TMI，那么这个TMI是否还可以再加税（GST/HST)?

商业地产的租金分两部分，一部分就是房租，另外一部分就是TMI。

房租在合同里通常叫Minimum Rent

而TMI就叫为"Additional Rent" means all amounts in addition to Minimum Rent payable by the Tenant to the Landlord pursuant to this Lease, including those amounts set out in Section 4.2; 这个Additional rent在合同里有非常详细的定义。也就是我们俗称的TMI。

那么房东收TMI的时候是否可以再增收GST/HST呢？其实大家有争议的就是说TMI里已经包含有税了，为什么房东还收GST/HST呢？

官方的回答是：

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tp...l/lss-eng.html

Generally, commercial leases from a landlord who is registered for the GST/HST are taxable.

Property taxes paid by a tenant are to be treated as part of the payment to the landlord for the rental of the real property, even if the tenant pays the taxes directly to the municipality. Therefore, the amount of property taxes payable by a tenant is considered to be part of the rent and is subject to GST/HST in the same way as the amount of rent payable by the tenant. This will be the case whether or not the rental agreement states that the payment of property taxes by the tenant is to be considered as "rent" or "additional rent"

However, if a tenant is directly liable to the municipality for the payment of property taxes, this amount is not subject to GST/HST.

总结就是：房东如果是有GST/HST账号的，一般商业地产的房东都是公司，而不是个人。所以都有税号的。那么房租和TMI都是可以增税的。除非就是租客直接向政府支付了地税的那部分是不能再加GST/HST了。

For more detail:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gm/19-4-1/19-4-1-e.html

See #30 "additional rents" 

The short version is that everything is taxable, unless exempted or zero-rated in the Act.