Free guides for Canadian investors on adjusted cost base, T5008 reconciliation, ETF return of capital, USD FX conversion, and Schedule 3 preparation.
These guides are written for Canadian investors — and the accountants who work with them — who hold securities in taxable, non-registered accounts and need to get adjusted cost base right before filing. If every trade happened at one brokerage with no distributions, transfers, or foreign currency involved, ACB would be simple arithmetic. In practice it rarely is: the same security often sits at more than one brokerage, ETFs distribute return of capital that broker statements don’t reflect, DRIPs add shares outside of a normal buy order, and USD-denominated trades need to be converted to CAD on each transaction’s own date. Registered accounts — RRSPs, TFSAs, FHSAs, and RESPs — are out of scope for ACB entirely, which is itself a common source of confusion this collection addresses directly.
The Canadian Adjusted Cost Base Checklist is a practical, pre-filing walkthrough covering T5008 Box 20/21 reconciliation, ETF return of capital and reinvested distributions, USD trade FX conversion, multi-broker pooling, transfer-in cost basis, and DRIP tracking, with a downloadable Excel template and a sample pre-filing worksheet. The Superficial Loss Rule in Canada covers the 30-day window, affiliated persons, the TFSA/RRSP trap, and tax-loss harvesting alternatives that respect the rule. More guides covering individual topics in depth are planned as this collection grows; the docs and blog sections already cover several of these topics if you need detail sooner.
A broker’s displayed book value and a T5008’s Box 20 figure are not guaranteed to equal your legal ACB, and the gap compounds the longer a position is held. A missed return-of-capital adjustment, an unpooled multi-broker position, or a mistimed repurchase that triggers the superficial loss rule’s 61-day window can each shift a reported capital gain or loss — and only 50% of a capital gain is taxable, so getting the base number wrong flows straight through to the return. The CRA also expects you to keep the records supporting that number for six years after the relevant tax year, which is easier to do when the calculation is documented as you go rather than reconstructed later from memory.
Each guide is organized as a checklist or step-by-step walkthrough you can work through against your own brokerage statements and slips, rather than a general explainer to read once. Start with the section that matches where you are: account and record collection if you’re just starting, T5008 reconciliation if you already have your slips, or the ETF/FX/DRIP sections if you know a specific adjustment applies to your holdings. Where a topic needs more space than a checklist allows, the guide links out to the relevant docs or blog page for the full mechanics.
Adjusted cost base (ACB) is the pooled cost of identical securities held in a taxpayer’s taxable accounts, adjusted over time for reinvested distributions, return of capital, stock splits, and transfer-in cost basis. When you sell, your capital gain or loss is the proceeds of disposition minus this ACB, and only 50% of a capital gain is included in taxable income under current federal rules.
A T5008 reports applicable securities transactions to you and to CRA. Box 20 is cost or book value and Box 21 is proceeds of disposition or settlement amount. CRA says Box 20 may or may not reflect adjusted cost base, so reconcile it to transfers, DRIPs, ETF adjustments, foreign exchange, superficial losses, and identical property held through another brokerage.
The CRA generally requires you to keep records supporting your ACB calculation for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, and indefinitely for records supporting a carried-forward capital loss.
Yes, several guides reference it. The superficial loss rule denies a capital loss when you or an affiliated person repurchases the same or identical security within 30 days before or after the sale — a 61-day window in total. The denied loss is not gone; it is added to the ACB of the repurchased shares.
Yes. Every guide on this page is free to read with no signup required. Some include a downloadable Excel template or worksheet. myCostBase, the paid product these guides support, is a separate CRA-aligned ACB ledger for investors who want the calculations tracked automatically instead of by hand.
Canada's superficial loss rule can deny a capital loss when the same or identical property is acquired in a 61-day period and is still owned at the end. Learn the two-part test, partial-loss formula and ACB treatment.
A practical pre-tax-filing checklist for Canadian investors to verify ACB, T5008 slips, ETF ROC, USD trades, DRIPs and multi-broker holdings before Schedule 3.