# Schedule 3 year of acquisition



## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

Schedule 3 wants a year of acquisition, which seems simple, but of course isn't. I'm curious what approach people use to filling out the year of acquisition. Is there a recommended approach?

For things I acquired once or twice, on specific dates, I will use the actual year. If twice, I will actually split up the item into two line items with the correct acquisition years. But this gets to be a PITA for things I've added to several times. I have funds that I acquired over the course of decades where I generally put in the most recent year I actively bought units -- ignoring DRIPs. Is there any reason this would be likely to cause a problem?


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

gardner said:


> Schedule 3 wants a year of acquisition, which seems simple, but of course isn't. I'm curious what approach people use to filling out the year of acquisition. Is there a recommended approach?
> 
> For things I acquired once or twice, on specific dates, I will use the actual year. If twice, I will actually split up the item into two line items with the correct acquisition years. But this gets to be a PITA for things I've added to several times. I have funds that I acquired over the course of decades where I generally put in the most recent year I actively bought units -- ignoring DRIPs. Is there any reason this would be likely to cause a problem?


Google tells me the year of acquisition is optional and can be left blank. I think I would likely take this route. In fact, I looked at my SimpleTax input page, and they don't even ask for the year of acquisition (so I guess I am leaving it blank by default, haha).


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

gardner said:


> Schedule 3 wants a year of acquisition, which seems simple, but of course isn't. I'm curious what approach people use to filling out the year of acquisition. Is there a recommended approach?
> 
> For things I acquired once or twice, on specific dates, I will use the actual year. If twice, I will actually split up the item into two line items with the correct acquisition years. But this gets to be a PITA for things I've added to several times. I have funds that I acquired over the course of decades where I generally put in the most recent year I actively bought units -- ignoring DRIPs. Is there any reason this would be likely to cause a problem?


I generally just pick either the earliest date or the date on which I bought the largest portion to satisfy the software's demand I put something in there. I suspect CRA doesn't even look at this, knowing full well there could have been multiple purchases. The key is to keep the paper documentation in the event CRA comes asking (never been asked yet).


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

gardner said:


> Schedule 3 wants a year of acquisition, which seems simple, but of course isn't. I'm curious what approach people use to filling out the year of acquisition. Is there a recommended approach?


The first tax book I bought made it simple ... use the year the first shares were bought. Only change that year if one sells all the stock then starts a new "run".




gardner said:


> ... If twice, I will actually split up the item into two line items with the correct acquisition years. But this gets to be a PITA for things I've added to several times.


 Sound like it is ... some of what I have bought would have needed six or more lines.




gardner said:


> ... I have funds that I acquired over the course of decades where I generally put in the most recent year I actively bought units -- ignoring DRIPs. Is there any reason this would be likely to cause a problem?


IMO ... this is no more likely than using the first year the investment was bought. 

So far, no requests for info from CRA when selling over the last three decades or so.


Cheers


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I have the dates in the ACB calculations but I never try to match the acquisition date with ACB.

The extreme case was with Megacorp stock acquired over 25 years of employment. No way to have an average date.

(I have often wondered how much fraud in involved with capital gains declarations when the CRA has no hope of estimating cost of acquisition! It seems to be a major gap in our CRA system.)


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

kcowan said:


> (I have often wondered how much fraud in involved with capital gains declarations when the CRA has no hope of estimating cost of acquisition! It seems to be a major gap in our CRA system.)


As have I. Seems an area ripe for CRA requests for documentation, but I have yet to ever get such a request.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

kcowan said:


> It seems to be a major gap in our CRA system.


I suspect that they will be papering over the gap as much as they can, and the T5008 is part of that.

I am worried that they will begin to trust the ACBs reported by the FI in the T5008 above the actual information reported by the taxpayer. Since TDDI seems to no longer accept corrections to the ACB they track, this is likely what is coming.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

gardner said:


> I suspect that they will be papering over the gap as much as they can, and the T5008 is part of that.
> 
> I am worried that they will begin to trust the ACBs reported by the FI in the T5008 above the actual information reported by the taxpayer. Since TDDI seems to no longer accept corrections to the ACB they track, this is likely what is coming.


Then keep an eye on 'requests' from the regulator regarding public comment on proposed changes in policy. So few members of the public make submissions that it is left to 'institutional vested interests' to sway the regulator....which will happen anyway, but if we don't protest, we clearly cannot argue with results we don't like. Clearly we should allow FIs to dictate the conclusion IF they are doing things wrongly.


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