What does it mean by it doesn't support partial superficial losses?

[SurienDG]

What is a partial superficial loss?

Does it mean what is described here?

If so is this functionality that will be added?

[EmilMaric]

Yes, it's the case listed under Partial Disposition.

I'd like to eventually add this feature but it's not a high priority for me right now.

[SurienDG]

Ah I see what is the current behaviour if you have this case? It counts it as a normal loss?

[EmilMaric]

The program will automatically detect and apply superifical losses at 100% (ie. the entire loss is made superifical). A better behaviour would be to allow the user to configure how much of a loss is superficial (from 0% to 100%).

[SurienDG]

Ah I see. What do you mean pick how much of a loss? Isn't the amount of loss determined by how much you bought in the 61 days compared to what you sold?

[SurienDG]

Actually I see what you mean since partial losses can optionally be applied. Thanks.

[SurienDG]

Actually couldn't you easily automatically calculate it for partial too? Since, you are already going through all the transactions in the 61 day period in your code so you would have the necessary info (see picture) to calculate the amount that is superficial (to add to ACB) and the amount you can claim as a capital loss (loss amount - superficial amount). So user wouldn't have to specify their preference it would just maximise it with this formula.

https://www.manulifeim.com/retail/ca/en/viewpoints/tax-planning/superficial-losses

[EmilMaric]

This can get complicated because purchases can happen within RRSPs and TFSAs that trigger superficial capital losses on sales in a non tax-sheltered account within that 61-day period. It's also hard to determine how much of the asset is left at the end of the period since some portion of that asset can be held within those tax-sheltered accounts. Transactions within tax-sheltered accounts aren't tracked for the purposes of calculating the ACB.

An improvement to what I have right now is to simply detect and warn the user that a transaction could potentially be a superficial loss, but not automatically apply it. It would be up to the user to manually input if the sale transaction is actually a superifical loss, and what portion of the loss should be considered superficial.

[SurienDG]

@EmilMaric Isn't this already a problem with what you have right now? (i.e. if a transaction occurs in a registered account then it wouldn't be factored into a superficial loss). So wouldn't a better solution be to simply add registered account transactions to the spreadsheet but add an account type column. Then if it is in a registered account you could avoid updating the cost basis when those transactions occur but still look at them when considering what the superficial loss would be in your non-registered accounts (so as to the divide up the superficial loss depending on number of acquired shares in each account as mentioned in comments on the adjusted cost basis website)

[EmilMaric]

Yes you're correct, it's a flaw/bug in my implementation.

I think what you're proposing would work, but I think it should be an optional feature. I don't think users should be required to track their transactions within registered accounts unless they really want to for the purpose of accurately and automatically tracking their superficial losses. There should be an additional option of manually setting the superificial loss percentage if users don't want to track registered account transactions, but do want the ability to dynamically set the amount of a capital loss that is superficial.