“We are in a crisis,” said City Councilor Lydia Edwards, the plan’s lead sponsor along with Councilor Kim Janey. “That we are suffering in one of the biggest booms in the history of our city is unacceptable.”
In the thick of an affordable housing crisis that has taken hold across Greater Boston, city councilors have proposed levying fees on high-end real estate deals to help pay for more housing — part of a bold and controversial movement across the region to tax developers who have been profiting off of a historic building boom.
The proposal would set a tax of up to 6 percent on many commercial and residential sales over $2 million and establish a “flipping” tax of up to 25 percent on some properties that are sold twice within two years. It’s a bid to stem speculation and profiteering in Boston’s red-hot real estate market, the councilors say, and could raise anywhere from $175 million to $350 million a year.
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