Adjusted cost base for a Wealthsimple account

If you hold non-registered investments at Wealthsimple, the number you need at tax time is your adjusted cost base, and it is not necessarily the book value shown beside a position. That is not a criticism of any broker. It is a consequence of how the rule is written: ACB is a property of you as a taxpayer, and a brokerage account is only part of what you own.

This page is about closing that gap. If you want the mechanics of the calculation itself, read adjusted cost base explained first; this one assumes it.

The one that catches most people: you transferred in

The single most common reason a cost figure is wrong is that the position did not start at the institution you are looking at.

When shares move between institutions as a transfer in kind, the shares arrive but their history does not travel with them automatically. Your cost base is unchanged by the transfer itself, because you have not sold anything, and a transfer is not a disposition. What can be missing is the record of that cost base at the receiving end.

So if you moved a holding to Wealthsimple from somewhere else, the figure to trust is the one built from your own purchase history at the original institution, not the one that appeared after the move. Rebuilding it means finding the original confirmations, and it is worth doing once, carefully, while the old statements are still downloadable from an account you may be about to close.

Your ACB is pooled across every account you hold

Canada pools identical property per taxpayer, not per account, and this is the part no single brokerage can compute for you.

If you hold the same security at Wealthsimple and at another broker, the two positions share one adjusted cost base. Buying more of it anywhere moves the average for all of it. No institution can see the other side, so neither institution's number can be right unless the security exists in only one place.

Adjusted cost base across two brokerages works through what that does to a sale, and it is the page to read if your answer to "do I hold this anywhere else" is yes.

The slip is not the answer either

The T5008 you receive reports proceeds, and box 20 is where a cost amount would appear. That box is not a substitute for your own records: what it may contain varies, it is reported per account by an institution that cannot see your other accounts, and CRA expects the figure on your return to be your ACB.

T5008 box 20 and your ACB covers how to read the slip against your own number, and the T5008 and cost base checker puts the two side by side and shows the Schedule 3 totals each one implies.

What else moves the number

Three things change an ACB without you buying anything, and all three are easy to miss on a statement.

• Reinvested distributions. Each reinvestment is a purchase and raises your cost base, even though no cash moved.
• Return of capital. A distribution classed as return of capital lowers your ACB rather than counting as income, which raises your eventual gain. See return of capital and your ACB.
• Commissions. They are part of the cost of acquiring, and they belong in the base.

Getting the history into one place

Wealthsimple is a supported read-only connection in Luum, so the account can be linked rather than typed, and its transaction history is what the cost base is built from. Connections are read-only by construction: Luum can see positions and transactions and has no ability to place a trade or move cash.

If you would rather not connect it, every plan takes a holdings upload, and transaction history import is available on the paid plans. A holdings snapshot is enough to see allocation; the transaction history is what an accurate cost base actually requires, because an average cost needs every purchase and not just the current position.

Whichever route you take, the point is that the pooling happens across all of your accounts at once, which is the calculation no single brokerage is in a position to do. Analyze your Wealthsimple portfolio covers what the rest of that combined view shows once the account is connected.

Common questions

Is the book value shown on my account my adjusted cost base?

Not necessarily, and the difference matters most in the two cases above: if the position was transferred in, or if you hold the same security somewhere else. Where neither applies and you bought everything in that one account, the two figures are usually trying to describe the same thing.

Does moving my account to Wealthsimple trigger tax?

A transfer in kind is not a disposition, so moving shares between institutions is not itself a taxable event. Selling in order to move cash instead is, which is the distinction worth checking before a transfer is started. A transfer out of a registered account is a different question again.

Do I need to track ACB for my TFSA or RRSP at Wealthsimple?

No. Adjusted cost base matters in a non-registered account, because that is where a capital gain is realised and reported. Registered accounts do not generate capital gains to report.

Can Luum work out my cost base from a holdings upload alone?

No, and neither can anything else. An average cost is built from the purchases that made up the position, so it needs the transaction history. A holdings file gives you the allocation and drift picture without it.