Forex Trading: Income or Capital Gain Tax in Canada?

I’ve always known that foreign exchange trading is treated as capital gain tax in Canada. But just to be sure before filing my taxes soon, I’ve decided to double check the facts from Canada Revenue Agency. As you know, the difference between income tax and capital gain tax is substantial. Income tax is taxed at your marginal tax rate. Whereas capital gain tax is a generous half of your marginal tax rate. That works out to a 10% to 20% difference.

Taxes in Canada is generally simple to do. The problem though, is sifting through the cacophony of information within the Canada Revenue Agency to find out the applicable rules. I’ve copy and pasted a couple of relevant excerpts from the 2010 CRA Income Tax Interpretation Bulletin for the record.

Basically, forex trading can be treated as either income or capital gain tax in Canada (surprise). According to IT-95R Foreign exchange gains and losses.

2. Where it can be determined that a gain or loss on foreign exchange arose as a direct consequence of the purchase or sale of goods abroad, or the rendering of services abroad, and such goods or services are used in the business operations of the taxpayer, such gain or loss is brought into income account. If, on the other hand, it can be determined that a gain or loss on foreign exchange arose as a direct consequence of the purchase or sale of capital assets, this gain or loss is either a capital gain or capital loss, as the case may be. Generally, the nature of a foreign exchange gain or loss is not affected by the length of time between the date the property is acquired (or disposed of) and the date upon which payment (or receipt) is effected.

As you can see, it is very vague. That’s why forex trading can be considered income or capital gain tax. It is up to you and your accountant to figure out which works for you.

A noteworthy point in the above excerpt is that the holding period is not taken into account. So there’s no 30-day rule like in the states whereby frequent trading would miss out the capital loss credit if they re-purchase the same asset within 30-day of disposal.

Update: Looks like I have misconstrued the above article with regard to capital loss. As Olga pointed out in the comments, Chapter 5 of T4037 defines Superficial Loss. In which if you repurchase your property (e.g. stock) within 30-days after a sale at a loss, then that initial loss cannot be deducted as a capital loss. More about the Superficial Loss rules in Canada can be found at WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com.

Further down the page in IT-95R, we have the following bullet.

6. A taxpayer who has transactions in foreign currency or foreign currency futures that do not form part of business operations, or are merely the result of sundry dispositions of foreign currency by an individual, will be accorded by the Department the same treatment as that of a “speculator” in commodity futures see 7 and 8 or IT-346R. However, if such a taxpayer has special “Inside” information concerning foreign exchange, he will be required to report his gains and losses on income account.

IT-346R Commodity Futures and Certain Commodities explains the tax treatment of speculation in the commodity markets.

7. As a general rule, it is acceptable for speculators to report all their gains and losses from transactions in commodity futures or in commodities as capital gains and losses with the result that only one-half the gain is taxable, and one-half the loss is allowable subject to certain restrictions, (hereinafter called “capital treatment”) provided such reporting is followed consistently from year to year.

So there, we have it. Amateur forex traders, such as myself, can report our forex trading gain/loss as capital gains and losses. The reason being that forex trading isn’t part of my business operation because I have another primary source of income (e.g. salary from another job).

Lucky exit for CAD/JPY long yesterday, downtrend resumes now?

I booked my profit on my CAD/JPY long last night mere pips away from the top. It was a lucky move, that’s all. Now it looks as though CAD/JPY will do one of the following:

Paper trade: Closed all CADJPY long @ 88.40 for +152 pips

CAD/JPY reached my target of 88.00 last Friday. It broke through 88.00 nicely and tested 88.50 on Tokyo open just now. I decided to book my profit in the demo account on this CAD/JPY long position entered at 86.88 and 87.87. See Figure 1 for the 3-hour chart with the entries and exits marked.

Main reason for my cold feet is that there’s a lot of resistance on CAD/JPY above 88.50, all the way to 90.70, from the daily chart (not shown). I couldn’t tell if CAD/JPY will continue pushing upward or retrace. So I’m booking my profit now to observe the price action from the sideline. This position has turned out +40 pips more than I expected, so I’m trying not to be too greedy in this volatile time.

The net profit on this paper trade amounts to +0.3% of my demo account. The yellow triangle in Figure 1 shows my exit. I risked 0.1% on the initial entry (first blue triangle). Then added 70% more to the position above a weak resistance level (second blue triangle) and moved the stop on the initial size to breakeven.

CAD/JPY, 3-hour

Paper trade: Long CADJPY @ 86.88, Stop 86.10, Target 88.0

I entered CADJPY long at market for 86.88 just now. This is a continuation of my previous USDCAD short position. However, USDJPY is on a run upward so I’m switching to go long on the loonie with yen instead.

Figure 1 shows the daily chart of CADJPY. Notice the imminent MACD bullish crossover and the already in-play stochastic upturn. I like it.

My stop loss level is set at 86.10. It’s the high of a previous peak on February 3, two weeks ago. My target is the round number 88 resistance. 88.0 has been an important price level for CADJPY for the past few months. So I’m setting my sight there.

CADJPY, daily

Figure 2 shows my timing for this entry. CADJPY is noticeably meeting some resistance at 87.50. 87.50 is also the 61.8% Fibonacci level of a recent down move. This is a cause for concern on my long position as we could very well retrace here. However, the bullishness of CADJPY is apparent in Figure 2. Prices have consistently been bought for the past few days right on the short term moving average (teal line). Furthermore, the intermediate term moving average (orange line) is about to cross the long term moving average (red line) as I enter this position.

Lastly, gold price has taken a dive from 1130 to 1100. Meanwhile, crude oil price is holding the 77 support nicely. Thus, this confirm my previous view that oil has better upside than gold in the intermediate term. Which is why I’ve been trading the loonie these past weeks.

For this particular CADJPY trade, I have another buy order waiting above current support level to add to my long position. Let’s see if CADJPY can break decisively to the upside in the next 24 hours as US and Canadian data comes out.

CADJPY, 4-hour

Paper trade: Stopped USDCAD short @ 1.0540 for +131 pips

Finally a profitable trade in my USDCAD short after being stopped out a few times. My decision last week to hold this for longer after USDCAD touched my target paid off. I moved my stop closer last Thursday evening and the order got filled on Friday. However, as I type this on the following Monday, USDCAD is trading even lower at 1.0478. It looks as though my original target of 1.0415 is in the cards.

Even though this is a profitable trade with a 0.17% gain in my demo account, there is one major flaw with this short USDCAD play. I was not able to squeeze more out of this profitable move.

As I’ve said, this short took a few tries. In fact, if we consider all the entires and exits of this play. My stopped out losses totaled 0.29% and my single win here is merely 0.17%. So I’m actually at a net loss of 0.12% from all these work.

My win/loss rate is about 40% based on my review of recent forex trades. I was able to edge out more than 10% profit in four months because when I am wrong, I take small steps. But when I’m right, I pile into a position.

Ever since my trading environment has changed, I’ve been trying to trade a longer timeframe. This USDCAD short is my first attempt on a new strategy. Evidently, I will need to re-think and re-learn what I’ve become accustomed to in the past few months.

One of the necessary trait of a successful trader is to be able to adapt. Markets change. Traders need to evolve with the markets or they will become obsolete. This will be a good test of myself to see if I can re-invent myself to adapt to a changing trading environment.

USDCAD, 3-hour