Canada

the pass off to tenants are simply not true, there is a threshold and after that threshold buying a home is cheaper than renting. And not occupied rental unit is actually "expensive" to the landlords, so they will be forced to sell.

There are many things that affects how that would be applied, and the fall out of how you implement such tax.

• you can't design the rules only for big metropolitan cities.
• remote region does benefit from ownership cause the owner pays property tax to help maintain some basic local infrastructures.
• need serious loop hole check so you don't ended up having companies gobble up everything "on sale" cause regular human landlords can no longer afford extra units.
• buying a place should come with responsibilities to maintain that place, if left to rot or damage heritage site, government should be able to take over and bill the owner.

Any tax that targets landlords will simply be passed on to the tenants, making rent more expensive.

Simply untrue, if a landlord has to pay more tax on a non-primary residence, they're going to have to rent it out for far more than a mortgage payment would cost a first time home buyer, meaning that the first time home buyer will have an easier time justifying outbidding them at sale time.

Also impossible for a landlord to pass that on in any property that is rent controlled with long term tenants, likely forcing them to sell their second and third homes, putting more on the market and driving prices down.