Confessions of a Tax Season Accountant - Determining the Adjusted Cost Base of Your U.S.Securities

Last week I received an avalanche of tax returns, as my clients finally received their T3 and T5013 tax slips (although many are now being amended). Driving to work to prepare all these returns was problematic, as the weather in Toronto was terrible. While snow in April is not what you hope for, the upside for an accountant is; my friends cannot call me on each hole of the golf course to torment me while I am working away doing tax returns. But I digress.

While preparing returns last week, I only found one noteworthy issue to discuss; that being the tracking of the adjusted cost base of U.S. stocks and securities. This issue rears its ugly head when filing terminal tax returns (the final return in the year of death) and for anyone who sells U.S. stocks and receives a capital gain/loss report solely in U.S. dollars.

What is the Adjusted Cost Basis of Your U.S. Securities? Your Guess is as Good as Mine

Unfortunately, over the past 15 months or so, I had a couple clients pass away. As discussed in this blog post, when you die, there is a deemed disposition of the capital property you own on death (unless you have a surviving spouse to whom you transfer your property under your will, although you can elect out of  this provision on a security by security basis). My issue has been obtaining the historical purchase dates of the U.S. stocks to determine the deemed disposition gain for these client's U.S. stock holdings.

For example. Say a client purchased IBM at $40 in their U.S. portfolio years ago when the exchange rate was say $1.05. The converted Canadian cost base is $42 ($40x1.05). Let’s assume the stock price upon the date of their death was $150. If the exchange rate on death is $1.30, the deemed proceeds are $195, and the capital gain should be $153 ($195-42).

However, in two cases where I had a client pass away, all I was provided with from the investment manager/institution was a U.S. cost base of $40 and a U.S. fair market value of $150. If I just convert both the $40 cost and $150 value at death at say $1.30, this would result in a capital gain of $143 instead of the correct $153. Where the U.S. stocks have been purchased with the current advisor, typically they can at least provide me with the purchase dates and sometimes they can run a new report with the converted $Cdn ACB. Where stocks were initially purchased by the client on their own or with another advisor, it is almost impossible to get the original purchase date unless the executor can find the original purchase documents.

The standard reasoning provided by reporting entities for not having this information is that the stocks were transferred to them and they don’t have the historical cost. I can live with that explanation, but query why when U.S. stocks are purchased by the manager or institution, they do not in many cases automatically track and convert to a $Cdn ACB? Another of life’s little tax mysteries.

Often I must play detective and try to somehow determine when these stocks were purchased which is either extremely time consuming or not possible given the lack of records.

Many of you may have this same issue if you have a U.S. stock portfolio with an investment advisor or financial institution and your yearly realized report is provided only in U.S. dollars. How do you know what your adjusted $Cdn cost base is? I suggest that in order to alleviate this problem, you ask your advisor to provide you on an annual basis with the $Cdn adjusted cost base of your U.S. stocks whether they have to push a button or have their assistant do it on a spreadsheet. You pay for this. If you are a DIY investor, you should ensure you note the foreign exchange date down for every U.S. or foreign stock purchase.

Long story short, this a significant reporting issue while you are alive and after you pass away.

Note: I am sorry, but I do not answer questions in late April due to my workload, so the comments option has been turned off. Thus, you cannot comment on this post and past comments on other blog posts will not appear until I turn the comment function back on.

This is my last post (although I may post a guest blog) for a couple weeks, so see you in May.

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation. Please note the blog post is time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

Confessions of a Tax Season Accountant - Late T-slips and Reporting the Sale of Your Principal Residence

In today's tax season confession, I will provide an update on the required reporting when you sell your principal residence. I also include my annual rant, about the fact many of my clients must wait until late March or early April to receive their final T-slips.

Condensed Tax Season

Just to be consistent with the prior 7 years, I will again complain about the condensed nature of tax season. I receive about 65% of my clients returns after March 31st, causing a crazy April. The delay is typically caused by clients waiting for their T3 and T5013 tax slips (you would not believe the amount of emails and faxes I received last week with just arrived T3's and T5013's). I ponder why, with current technology, that all filing deadlines for T4’s, T5’s, T3’s and T5013’s cannot be moved up by 15-30 days, so everyone has adequate time to file their tax returns. I guess this is one of life’s little mysteries.

Principal Residence Exemption Rules

As discussed in this October 2016 blog post on the new Principal Residence (“PR”) reporting requirements, you must now report the sale of your PR (typically your house but can also be your cottage) on your tax return.

For 2016, you just had to report the sale on schedule 3, unless the gain was not fully exempt, in which case you had to file Form T2091 (IND) Designation of a Property as a Principal Residence by an Individual (Other Than a Personal Trust). However, for 2017 and any future years, you must now file schedule 3 and Form T2091 in all cases.

If you designate your home/cottage as your PR for all the years you owned it on schedule 3 (box 1), other than the free plus 1 year, (you may recall the formula to determine the exempt portion on the sale of your PR is the capital gain on the sale of your PR, times the ratio of the number of years you have lived in your home [i.e. designated the home as your principal residence] plus 1, divided by the number of years you have owned the property) the form is fairly simple to complete. You just need to fill out the first page of the T2091 form. You will need to include the following information:

• the year of acquisition of the property you sold
• the proceeds of disposition 
• the address of the property being designated as a principal residence 
• the years you owned the property and are designating as your principal residence.

Penalty

There are stiff penalties for not filing the PR designation on time. New paragraph 220(3.21)(a.1) will allow for late-filed forms subject to certain time restrictions. The penalty will be the lesser of the following amounts:

• $8,000; and

• $100 for each complete month from the original due date of the relevant income tax return to the date that your request for a late-filed designation is made in a form satisfactory to the CRA.

The CRA says on their website that a penalty may apply where the PR election is late-filed. I would work on the assumption the penalty is applicable and you will need the CRA to be merciful to have the penalty removed.

It is also important to note that if you do not file the T2091 form, your return can be re-assessed at any time. This means the usual statue barred period of 3 years is not applicable and your return remains open until the end of time or three years from when your return is assessed, when you finally file the form.

If you sold your principal residence in 2017, simply put, complete schedule 3 and file Form T2091, or there may be punitive repercussions.

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation. Please note the blog post is time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

Steve Stamkos, Olympic Medals and Income Taxes

As a sports enthusiast, I am always interested in stories that combine sports and income tax. Today, I want to discuss a couple of these stories:

1. Steve Stamkos resigning with the Tampa Bay Lightning in June and the income tax considerations he would have had to ponder (if he ever truly considered the Toronto Maple Leafs as a final destination).

2. The income tax that Canadian Olympic gold, silver and bronze medalists have to pay on the bonuses they earned in winning their medals.

Steve Stamkos Signing

If you are a hockey fan, you were well aware that Steve Stamkos ("Stamkos") was a free agent this spring and that there were rumours negotiations were not going well with his current team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. As result, many Toronto Maple Leafs fans were hopeful Stamkos would sign with the Leafs, his hometown team (some fans felt that spending money on Stamkos at this time would

impact the current Leafs rebuild and thought such a move would be a year or two early - but I digress).

In the end, Stamkos resigned with Tampa Bay for a reported contract of $68,000,000 over eight years (or, an average $8.5 million a year), paid as $9.5 million in each of the next five years, followed by $7.5 million, $6.5 million and $6.5 million in the final three years. It was also reported that Stamkos' base salary will sit at $1 million each year, with the rest being paid as a signing bonus.

While Stamkos was deciding where to sign, there were various discussions on whether he would provide Toronto with a hometown discount to offset the preferential U.S. tax system. With the possibility that one of the NHL’s top players would potentially be moving teams, sports writers quickly had to get up to speed with economic and income tax issues.

I asked a friend last June (who prepares U.S. tax returns) to run some numbers comparing Stamkos’s average $8.5 million salary for a Florida resident to an Ontario resident assuming there was no foreign exchange issue (I did this to solely isolate the income tax consequences and to avoid the complications of dealing with fluctuating F/X rates and the purchasing power of the $U.S. – but yes, this would be a large factor in any decision). BTW: I understand that all NHL players are all paid in $U.S.

My friend ran some tax numbers based on a U.S. resident with single filing status using 2015 tax rates/brackets, and assumed no itemized deductions to keep things simple. He determined the income tax on an $8,500,000 salary would be around $3,320,000, or about 39.06%. Given the top U.S. federal marginal rate for 2015 and 2016 is 39.6%, this rate is in the ballpark as the top bracket for a single taxpayer is reached at $413,201 for 2015 ($415,051 for 2016).

A huge factor in calculating the income tax variance between the U.S. and Canada is there is no state personal tax in Florida. However, hockey players are taxable in the various U.S. states/cities where they play away games (which would likely push the average tax rate into the low 40s).

If Stamkos had decided to play for the Leafs in 2016 (again, assuming a neutral exchange rate for purposes of this discussion), his tax payable would have been approximately $4,510,000 and his average tax rate at 53.10% and his marginal rate at 53.53% (accounting for the increase in tax rates implemented by the Liberals). Thus, if Stamkos had decided to play for the Leafs, he would have owed approximately $1,190,000 more in income tax than in the U.S. and his average tax rate would have been 10-13% higher depending upon all the facts.

It is interesting to note that if the U.S./Canada exchange rate was $1.30 for his entire contract, Stamkos would have been neutral, from a purely cash flow perspective, in signing with Toronto.Yet, per this article, totally speculative and without confirmation, Stamkos supposedly wanted $14million to come to Toronto.

After reviewing the above, you now know why Stamkos and many other players must take into account the income tax considerations when deciding on which team and country to play.

Olympic Gold – Not Tax-Free

During the Olympics, The Globe and Mail ran a story written by Alicia Siekierska titled “It’s gold – for the taxman. In this article she noted that the Canadian Olympic Committee awards Olympic athletes with bonuses (wow, I never knew this. How un-Canadian to incentivize winning for our athletes :)  if they make the podium: $20,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver medal and $10,000 for a bronze medal).

The article discussed that the Income Tax Act paragraph 56(1)(n) considers only certain prescribed prizes as tax exempt. As noted in Income Tax Folio S1-F2-C3, “Section 7700 of the Regulations defines a prescribed prize as any prize that is recognized by the general public and that is awarded for meritorious achievement in the arts, the sciences or service to the public. It is a question of fact whether a prize is considered to have been recognized by the general public for purposes of section 7700 of the Regulations. In making such a determination, one should consider whether there is evidence suggesting a high level of public awareness of the prize and the extent to which the announcement or receipt of the prize is widely publicized by the media. For example, a Nobel Prize given to a scientist or the Governor General's Literary Award given to a professional writer would qualify”.

The article noted that the Olympics are not considered a public service and thus, the medal bonuses paid to athletes such as Penny Oleksiak and Andre De Grasse will be taxable.

The article quotes William Innes, a tax litigator with Reuters LLP. Mr. Innes states the CRA’s position on taxing Olympians prize money is “outrageous”. He feels winning an Olympic medal should fall under the service to the public section noted above. He goes on to say “I would think that the average man or woman on the street would hold that somebody getting an Olympic medal is providing a service to the public”.

For the Penny Oleksiak’s and Andre De Grasse’s of the world, this is probably a bit of a mute issue, as they will receive significant endorsement opportunities dwarfing the bonus money. But for the typical less high profile medal winners who do not have significant funding, it seems unfair they are taxed on their Olympic bonuses. You would think there would be some co-ordination in policy between the Olympic Committee and the CRA.

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation.

Reporting the Capital Gains on Your 2015 U.S. Stock Sales

Last year I wrote a blog post titled Foreign Exchange Translation on Capital Gains and Dividends. The article noted that the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) expects you to use the Bank of Canada noon rate or other acceptable exchange rate in effect at the time of purchase and sale for any capital transaction.

To be clear; this means that when you purchase a stock you must translate it at the date of purchase and again at the date of sale [i.e. if you purchased 50 shares of Johnson & Johnson for $80 when the foreign exchange rate is $1.10, your cost for Canadian purposes is $4,400 (50 x $80 x $1.10)]. If you sold the J&J shares later in the year for $90 and the FX rate was $1.45, your proceeds are $6,525 (50 x $90 x $1.45) and your capital gain to report is $2,125 ($6,525-$4,400).

The trouble is, many financial institutions just provide you capital gains summaries based on your U.S. purchase and sale price. If you then multiply that gain by the average foreign exchange rate for 2015 ($1.2787), your capital gain is wrong.

This is a huge issue for 2015, where the U.S. dollar strengthened significantly against the Canadian dollar. You really need to go back and translate your purchases and sales at the FX rate in effect at that time. The same holds for sales of U.S. real estate or any other U.S. capital property.

The above was recently re-enforced when a client of mine advised me of the following:

My client informed me that a certain financial institution was very proud of themselves this year for coming up with a new Realized Capital Gain report and had sent him an email to tell them how wonderful they are.

However, he noted the trouble was they were only reporting capital gains in the original currency, USD.

My client said, “I would bet that many taxpayers are just taking that USD number and converting it to Canadian at the sale date and calling that the gain. Given the big drop in the CAD$ in recent years, they are, of course, under-reporting grossly. There is no warning on the report, not to do this”. He suggested I write another blog post on this topic and hence, today's topic.

When he calculated his capital gain using the rates in effect at the time of purchase and sale, he emailed me to tell me the gain was $35,000 higher than if he had just taken the U.S. gains on the report and used the CRA's average rate for 2015.

It is very important to ensure you translate your capital gains at the actual purchase and sale prices in 2015, or you may be severely under reporting your capital gains.

Bloggers Note: I have disabled the ability to comment on this or any prior blog post. I apologize, but I am too busy during tax season to answer the various questions and comments I receive. 

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation. Please note the blog post is time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.