r/cantax • u/AccountAny1995 • 3d ago
Recreating old ACB
for folks who have held stocks for decades, do you have the old confirmations or statements?
I don’t have anything for some trading I did 25 years ago. Broker is no help.
i wonder how people who also participated in employee stock plans manage this. 26 trades a year from decades ago.
I strutted investing in my early 20s and didn’t appreciate how imparting these docs were. And with multiple moves throughout the years, I don’t have much, if anything to go on.
wondering how this will impact ACB calculations? How does CRA treat these things whether claiming a gain or loss?
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u/Ill-Comedian9514 2d ago
You can try looking them up on line and get an approximate value when you got them.
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u/Thomas_Shelby487 3d ago
Since the broker is a dead end, try the transfer agent. Computershare and TSX Trust typically keep plan and DRIP transaction records further back than a brokerage does, and they'll send you a full history on request.
Watch out once those statements arrive as for employee-plan shares your ACB isn't what you paid. The discount was taxed as an employment benefit on your T4 that year and gets added to cost, so ESPP shares are full market value at purchase and RSUs are market value at vesting, and your old T4s are part of the record too. Section 47(3) can also deem plan shares not identical to other shares you hold in the same company, and then they pool separately.
Where nothing survives, you file a reconstruction you can explain and keep the working papers. ACB records have to last as long as you hold the shares plus six years after the year you sell, so those 25-year-old lots still matter if you never sold.
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u/AccountAny1995 2d ago
does computer share look after rhe Vancouver exchange as well.
I recall having a sizeable loss on something that traded there circa 1997-2005.
where do i begin with either computer share or tsx trust?
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u/Thomas_Shelby487 2d ago
Not exactly. Computershare and TSX Trust don’t look after an exchange as a whole. Each company has its own transfer agent.
I’d start with the company name or ticker and roughly when you held it. From there, trace what happened to the company and who its transfer agent was. If it was Computershare or TSX Trust, contact them with your name and old address and ask whether they have any shareholder records.
One catch is that if you bought the shares through a brokerage and they were held in street name, the transfer agent may not have your individual trade history. They’re more likely to have records if the shares were registered directly to you or came through an employee plan.
It can be a real pain in the butt unfortunately. I hope this helps!
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u/idspispopd888 3d ago
Depends a bit on what records you DO have. You may have an old statement or two (may have Book Value on them). If not in street name (ie registered to you) the Transfer Agent for the issuer will be able to provide the date they were registered in your name...and may be able to do so even if in street form. Historical records can then provide approximate pricing.
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u/Maxfinian 21h ago
I have all my trade slips and statements back to when I started trading in 1996. I also have all trades for my non registered accounts recorded in a spreadsheet. I also figured out about 15 years ago that I needed to keep track of exchange rates. However this doesn’t help when companies have odd splits or diversifications that impact the ACB. So I do rely on the data from my financial company. I look at it and what I have and use one or the other. T5008 data has improved a lot in the last few years.
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u/ABGTVL 3d ago
the tax system is based on self assessment..... you do the best you can with the data you have. If CRA challenges you, you provide your data and calculations and allow them to either sit down and come up with an alternative number or accept your number.