So, I was puzzled recently why out of the blue 69 shares of BIPC showed up in my portfolio. After some investigating, I found out that I was missing all my IPL shares (Inter Pipeline) too. Now, I do remember there were some multiple hostile take-over attacks going on last year, so no doubt that’s what happened.
I was able to find this in my records now in IBKR:
I guess that tells me something. I also was able to track down some further info:
DISPOSITION OF IPL COMMON SHARES FOR CASH AND BIPC SHARES
A Resident Holder that disposes of Common Shares to Brookfield Infrastructure for cash and/or BIPC Shares will be considered to have disposed of such Common Shares for proceeds of disposition equal to the aggregate fair market value of the cash and/or the BIPC Shares received. Such a Resident Holder will realize a capital gain (or a capital loss) equal to the amount by which such proceeds of disposition, net of any reasonable costs of disposition, exceed (or are less than) the aggregate adjusted cost base to the Resident Holder of the Common Shares disposed of. A Resident Holder that receives only cash and/or BIPC Shares for its Common Shares is not eligible to make a tax deferral election as noted below. A Resident Holder should consult its own tax advisor on the determination of the fair market value of any BIPC Shares received on the disposition of its Common Shares and the computation of its capital gain (or capital loss), if any.
That’s great and all, but I’m no lawyer and already confused. I am going to do a rough guess for now, and assume that even though all my original IPL shares were swapped with other shares, the CRA is still going to want me to pay something for this. Am I correct in assuming I can get away with just seeing what my capital gain was from buying IPL until the point IPL was swapped, and just pay tax on the difference? Then not touch any of the new BIPC shares until they are sold?
Knowing the CRA, I am hoping they don’t yet again force this to become some super complicated nightmare, sort of like they do with wash-sales rules, etc.