Options Trading and Adjusted Cost Base in Canada
How Canadian tax reporting works for listed calls and puts, including grant-year premium, closing trades, exercise, assignment, expiry, and cross-year adjustments.
myCostBase
11 min read
How Canadian tax reporting works for listed calls and puts, including grant-year premium, closing trades, exercise, assignment, expiry, and cross-year adjustments.
A practical monthly and year-end recordkeeping routine for Canadian investors tracking purchases, DRIPs, ETF adjustments, transfers, FX, and T5008 slips.
Phantom distributions are taxable income from ETFs that were never paid out in cash. They increase your adjusted cost base and are often missed by broker book value records.
If you held more than $100,000 in specified foreign property at any point during the year, you must file T1135. Here is exactly what counts, what does not, and how to report it correctly.
Learn how to find and document Bank of Canada exchange rates for foreign-currency investments, including settlement dates, missing observations, and T5008 checks.
T5008 Box 20 is cost or book value and Box 21 is proceeds of disposition. Learn what CRA says each field contains, what to verify, and how they map to Schedule 3.
How to track adjusted cost base in a spreadsheet, what columns you need, where Excel and Google Sheets fall short, and when Canadian investors should switch to dedicated ACB software.
Broker book value can be a useful cross-check, but it may not reflect your complete adjusted cost base. Learn when it is useful, why differences arise, and how to reconcile them.
Step-by-step guide to calculating adjusted cost base for Canadian stocks and ETFs. Includes the ACB formula, worked examples for stocks and ETFs, partial sales, and common mistakes.