In Episode 8 of the Canadian Couch Potato podcast, I answered the following question from a listener named Remy:
I want to move away from my stocks and mutual funds in order to build a Couch Potato portfolio with ETFs. What is the best way to do this? Should I sell everything at once and pay all of the taxes this year, or should I sell my assets over a longer period, like two to three years?
Many investors in Remy’s situation have made that all important first-step: committing to an indexed strategy. But now they’re unsure about how to liquidate their existing portfolio and build the new one. Should you clean house and do it all at once, or take a more gradual approach?
This is an easy decision if all of your investments are in RRSPs and TFSAs. Since there are no tax consequences to selling your existing holdings, you should just liquidate all the holdings right away. But Remy is investing in a non-registered account, and if he’s held his stocks and mutual funds for several years, he’s probably sitting on large unrealized capital gains, so selling these securities would result in a significant tax bill. For example, if his stocks and funds have increased in value by $50,000 and Remy is in a 40% tax bracket, selling them all at once would result in a tax bill of about $10,000. (Only half the capital gain is taxed at your marginal rate.)
So, does it makes sense to realize these gains all at one, and report all of those gains this year? Or should you try to spread out that tax bill over a couple of years instead? The answer will depend on the individual circumstances, but here’s how I suggest approaching the problem.
Consider risk above all else. Let’s say you own a U.S. equity mutual fund that holds several dozen blue-chip stocks and has a fee of 1.75%, and you’re looking to replace that fund with a much cheaper ETF. Your mutual fund is not a ticking time bomb that could blow up your portfolio: it’s just too expensive. So if there’s a large unrealized gain, it might make sense to sell the fund gradually over two or three calendar years to spread out the tax bill. The benefit of the tax deferral might outweigh the difference in fees between the mutual fund and the ETF, and you’re not taking on any additional risk with the more expensive fund.
But now consider a situation where you own three or four small-cap tech stocks with the goal of replacing these with a total-market ETF. Now I would recommend selling the stocks immediately, because holding a small number of individual companies puts you at risk of very large losses and completely undermines your goal of building a more diversified portfolio. So consider yourself lucky to have picked a few stocks that did well, but now it’s time to dump them, pay the taxes, and move on.
Will your tax rate change next year? Tax deferral can be valuable, but it’s only worth so much if you’ll be in the same tax bracket for the foreseeable future. If that’s the case, selling half your holdings this year and half next year would still result in the same overall tax liability (assuming the value of the holdings don’t change), and there isn’t a lot of value in deferring a few thousand dollars in taxes for 12 months.
But now consider some different scenarios. Maybe you plan to take a sabbatical or a parental leave next year, which would put you in a lower bracket. That would be an argument for deferring the whole gain until next year, since it would be taxed much more favourably at that time. On the other hand, if you’re in line for a promotion and expect to be in a higher tax bracket next year, it would make more sense to realize the entire gain now, which would allow you to report it in a year when you’ll pay less tax.
What time of year is it? If it’s January or February and you sell only half your holdings to defer some of the gains, you’ll need to wait until next January to sell the remainder. A lot can happen in those intervening 11 or 12 months, and that’s an argument for selling everything all at once.
However, if you’re overhauling your portfolio and it’s November or December, it probably does make sense to realize half the gains now and half in the new year, because now you’re waiting only a few weeks to get that tax deferral.
In fact, if you have very large capital gains and it’s late in the year, you might have an opportunity to spread them over three calendar years. You could sell a third of the holdings in December, another third a few weeks later in the new year, and the rest the following January. Now you’ve spread the gains over three tax years while making all of the transactions in less than 14 months.
Just do it
One final note: don’t forget that if you do realize significant capital gains in one tax year, you may be able to recover them in the future by tax-loss harvesting.
Let’s say you realize $10,000 in gains when you sell your current holdings. Then next year there’s a sharp downturn in the markets, and now you find your new ETF portfolio is showing an unrealized loss of $5,000. You could sell the ETFs that have fallen in value and immediately replace them with similar (but not identical) ETFs. That would realize a capital loss of $5,000, which you would report on your next tax return. You could then fill out Form T1A (Part 3) to have the losses carried back to offset some of the gains you previously reported. Capital losses can be carried back for up to three years.
As you can see, there are several factors to consider when liquidating a taxable portfolio, but overall I recommend making the transition as soon as you can. Deferring taxes can be useful, but don’t ignore the behavioural pitfalls of hanging on to your holdings. Believe me, you will be tempted to resort to your old ways if one of your stocks has another good year: you’ll question your decision to make the switch (“maybe I really am a great stock picker!”) and the next thing you know, you’ve lost your way. You’ll get off to a much better start if you can leave that baggage behind.
I’m going through this process right now. Unless there are significant tax consequences from selling everything, I’d recommend to do it, and do it as soon as possible.
Based on the performance of my mutual funds, they have underperformed broad-based index ETFs by more–in some cases much more–than the difference in MERs. This presents a compelling case to liquidate Canadian high-fee, underperforming mutual funds quickly.
My 84-year-old father recently asked me to have a look at his finances. He’s had the same financial advisor for many years. As I expected, his investments consist of overpriced, actively managed mutual funds. At least it’s a relatively small number of funds with nothing exotic.
I was, however, shocked to learn that his portfolio is 100% equity – not a fixed income security in site!
I discussed it with my father and he’s asked me to help him fix it. Some of his investments are in RRIF and TFSA accounts, but he’s also sitting on some large capital gains in a non-registered account. My plan is to sell enough now to get him to an appropriate asset allocation and then sell the rest over a couple of years to eliminate all the overpriced funds.
It occurred to me that in my father’s case, there is an additional benefit to realizing the capital gains over the next few years. If we do nothing and wait until his estate is being settled, then all the capital gains will be realized in the same year and the overall taxes payable will be higher. The irony here is that when I talked to the financial advisor, his only justification for the 100% equity allocation was the fact that he didn’t want to trigger capital gains.
It’s also ironic that without ever appreciating the risk he was taking on, Dad has been well served by his crazy aggressive portfolio. He has more money than I realized and I’ve told him he should go spend some of it. He’s booked on an Alaskan cruise this summer.
@Darren: Thanks for the comment. You’ve raised a couple of interesting issues. The advisor’s decision not to realize gains here, in my opinion, was probably a poor one, even though it worked out well.
The reluctance to realize capital gains always needs to be weighed against the risk of holding stocks that could fall dramatically in value. Your father has neither the time horizon nor the need to take on so much risk. And as you point out, anyone who does not have a spouse should consider realizing gains late in life to avoid a potentially huge deemed disposition on the final tax return. Taken together it would seem wise to take some gains and reduce the risk in this portfolio.
The Alaskan cruise, however, was excellent advice!
I did this Jan 2016. Sold all my cad dividend stocks I purchased in 2010 and 2011. At the time of sale, TSX was down, so paid less capital gains. But still had to pay tax.
Moved everything to max out mine and the wife’s TFSA and RSP. Rebalanced into HXT.
Did this because:
Had substantial contribution room in RSP, fair amount in TFSA.
Dividends (and gross up on tax return )were causing significant clawback to CTB. Adding more than 15% to my income. Since this goes for 18 years and is risk free money, I decided to keep dividends out of non-reg and index to reduce risk of bad stock picks in the future.
RSP contribution netted a large tax refund, and helped offset the capital gains tax. Then it lowered net income, which will give me more CTB this year. I calculated by doing this, I got 5% more return on my contribution by way of more CTB post June 2017 when they reset calculation. Tax and risk free.
Now my portfolio is this:
RSP: VTI, VEA, XIU, XBB
TFSA, XUS, XEF, XIU, XBB
I chose Ishares because of liquidity and AUM. US funds are from legacy USD in RSP. I don’t mind paying a little extra mer, especially when you get more liquidity and don’t have to pay huge spreads on bid and ask. Also if shit hits the fan I want to sell bonds and rebalance. So liquidity is important with a strong ETF provider.
All money sheltered now, and I have ZEN with my portfolio!!
I think CCP advice of “just do it” might be the best, because if you suffer a bad stock pick (HCG?) this will wipe out any gain you had by waiting for a better time. So he is right, stock picking risk is there.
Another variable would be RRSP contribution room. Someone with contribution room could more easily sell unregistered investments and move the resulting funds over to an RRSP and cancel out the capital gains, at least partly.
(One could wonder why the investments weren’t already in an RRSP, but the investments could be from years ago when RRSP room wasn’t available for whatever reason.)
Triggering significant cap gains may also put you in line for big/bigger quarterly tax payments next year. It’s not a big deal as long as you plan to have the cash available, or go through the paperwork to calculate a lower payment based on expected income for the next year.
@CCP: Good article, but you forgot to mention the deffered sale charges (DSC) that could apply to the mutual funds when selling the units.
On a more advanced subject, investors should check their effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) prior to their decision to sell their units in a taxable account. They could pay much more than their tax rate by selling part or all of their taxable investments. Sometimes, it could save taxes to sell more even if that mean the marginal tax rate (MTR) will be higher as the EMTR will be lower this way.
I am in a somewhat related situation with my RRSP account. I know there are no tax implications, i just can’t pull the trigger on selling my managed RRSP investments which are doing so well right now.
Last year I followed the CCP model portfolios and invested in ETFs in both my TFSA and RRSP accounts, but I didn’t go all in. I still have some of my early investments tied up in managed BMO Equity ETF Funds. My previous strategy was similar to CCP by which I diversified my investing through an even split between US, CAN & INT’L, and with low MERs. I recently had the BMO ETFs transferred into my BMO self-directed account where I was planing to sell them and pick-up more of the CCP ETFs, however the BMO Equity ETF Funds are all outperforming my CCP portfolio ETFs. The MER on the BMO Equity ETFs are between 1.05% – 1.17%, which are obviously much higher then the ETFs in the CCP portfolio, but their performance is almost double in all markets US, CA & INT’L.
So my question really is, should I just sell them and go all in on the CCP ETFs, or hold them as they are experiencing great performance? I do want to just simplify everything … but wisely.
My first ETF is down 2%, my mutual funds are up 10%. Should I sell my mutual funds and move it to ETFs now or should I keep them since they are doing well?
My existing TFSA and RRSP investments are e-series. I had stopped contributing to those recently and planning to make lump sump investments at a different broker for ETFs.
I had planned to keep the e-series as they are, and grow ETFs from this point forward. Would this be a wise move or should I consider ‘converting’ all my e-series to ETFs eventually?
I have around 20 Canadian stocks and 19 USA stocks in my RRSP account and the same 20 Canadian stocks in my wife’s and my TFSA . I would like to sell all of our stocks and go entirely to ETF’S.
I was wondering about putting stops on my stocks or just selling at market value?
@Joe: In my opinion, once you have made the decision it’s best to simply move ahead with the trades. Putting in stop orders is really just guesswork, and it could be a long time before one of the limits is reached and the order gets filled.
@CCP
Good day! I recently inhereted 50000$ and want to invest using the ccp model etf portfolio. I am new to investing but have done alot of online research and I feel that this is the correct road to take since I want my investment in for the long run (20+ years).
The only thing holding me back is that the markets are at a high. Would it be more prudent to wait for a setback and then invest the lump sum? Or use dollar cost averaging and get my money in without trying to time the market?
Thank you for you help, this website has been of great help getting my investing beak wet.
@Steven: Waiting for setback is, by definition, market timing and not recommended. If you aren’t comforatble investing a large lump sum (which is perfectly understandable), investing in two or three stages can certainly reduce the potential for regret. Just make sure you set specific dates for each stage: otherwise you will find yourself tempted to wait until it “feels right.”
I’m a young professional who has maxed out my tfsa with questrade and have an rrsp with wealthsimple. Moving forward, I hope to continue index investing in a personal account. However, I am hoping to keep this as simple as possible. I was told to open a td e series account for my non registered account as it would make acb tracking easier. Is that correct or would it be just as easy to use wealthsimple or continue independently with questrade? Thank you
@Azrav: I can’t comment on what brokerage is right for you, but I can confirm that ACB tracking tends to be easier with mutual funds, as you don’t need to make any manual adjustments. I can say from experience that Questrade does not seem to properly adjust ACB for return of capital and reinvested capital gains. I don’t know whether Wealthsimple does this.
I went ahead and switched over to ETFs a couple of months ago, now the stock market is at an all-time high, but all my ETF portfolio is down…how does that happen. I have the three ETF’s you advise
Would it be advisable to attempt some form of dollar cost averaging instead of switching all at once to have some protection from market volatility? ie. splitting the purchase into 4 quarters.
@Augustus: The assumption here is that you are already invested, not sitting in cash. So are not changing your market exposure by switching all at once.
Hey Dan, I’m currently holding my TFSA and RRSP investments in the e-series. I’m wondering if I should stop contributing to those and start my etf investments at questrade instead. I’ve heard questrade pays the fees to transfer them over, do you know something about that?
I had planned to keep the e-series as they are, and grow ETFs from this point forward. Would this be a wise move or should I consider ‘converting’ all my e-series to ETFs eventually?
thanks a lot as always!
@Nic: Many brokerages will reimburse all or part of your transfer fees:
http://www.questrade.com/campaigns/free_to_transfer
In my opinion, unless the portfolio is quite large and you are willing to go through the learning curve with ETFs, the TD e-Series funds remain an excellent choice:
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/02/19/why-index-mutual-funds-still-have-a-place/
I enjoyed listening to your podcast. I have funds in registered accounts and just moved them around with a financial advisor. The costs are huge! I like your approach and it makes a lot of sense to me. My question is, what fees will I have to pay to remove the money from the funds with clarington and fidelity? I read an article that you wrote about TD E series and I think that is a good option for me. One thing that I would like to say is that I have lost the most amount of money since June when I made the switch; more than I have throughout all of my investing so far.
I appreciate any advise that you can give!
@Connie: If your mutual funds have deferred sales charges (DSCs) you can call the fund companies directly and ask them to provide you with a schedule for these fees. They will let you know how much you can sell today without cost, the total fee if you sold everything today, and when the DSCs expire. You can then determine whether it makes sense to divest gradually.
Yes, unfortunately just about everything (both bonds and equities) are down in the last few months. Such short-term losses are inevitable, so it’s important to have a long-term focus.
Thank you for your response. I don’t have an issue with the losses as they are part of investing, but the high fees do make me wonder if these mutual funds are the right choice for me. I look forward to listening to your remaining podcasts and the new ones to come.
Connie
Hi Spud – are you able to build a chart that shows “equivalent” EFTS (along with MERs) so we can see if Tax harvesting is possible with a certain ETF? I assume by equivalent you mean in terms of what their exposure is (ie if you sell an ETF that contains only the top 100 Canadian companies, you want to buy one that also contains pretty much the same 100 companies). Price probably doesn’t matter right? – for you would hold the same dollar value, but just more or less shares?
sorry i am new to this but i am learning a lot already :)
@Vince: This is a bit out of date but should help get you started:
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/10/24/finding-the-perfect-pair-for-tax-loss-selling/
Yes, the share price of the ETF is totally irrelevant: all that matters is the total value of the holding.
I’ve been moving things around the last few years, all toward the CCP model. So far so good, and I’m at my last step.
My only nonregistered account has $23,000.
It was holding RBF556 and other expensive funds.
I sold those the other day, planning to buy CCP-recommended ETFs.
Then I realized this would leave me subject to the capital gains tax.
Where I’m stuck:
1. I can’t for the life of me figure out what my capital gains are (because I don’t know when those where purchased and at what amount; I seem to have transferred them from some other firm).
2. If the gains are too high (more than $2100), I’d rather repurchase some of what I sold within the 30 calendar day deadline.
My questions are:
1. How can I figure out what my capital gains are, with no record of the starting amounts?
2. Does the fund company report the gain -from purchase to sale- to the investment firm currently holding the account it’s in?
3. Can I contact the fund company? Is that the way I can get the information now, in order to make my decision within 30 days?
4. If not, is there another way for me to figure out a reasonable estimate of each fund’s gains from date of original purchase to date of sale?
@J: When you say you have “no record of the starting amounts,” this is odd, because all brokerages report the book value for each holding. This amount should be on your most recent statement.
The book value your brokerage reports for your mutual funds will generally (though not always) be correct. These are usually calculated at the fund level, and even if you transfer the fund from one brokerage to another, the book values typically remain intact. If you have reason to to believe they are not then, yes, sometimes the fund company can help you determine this. But I doubt this will be necessary.
The fund company does not report gains or losses: your brokerage does. At tax time they should send you a gain/loss report that indicates the book value and the proceeds received for each security sold in your non-registered account. You are then responsible for reporting the gains or losses on your tax return.
The 30-day window you mention pertains to superficial losses. If you sold a fund with a capital gain, you can’t buy the fund back and make the taxable gain go away. Sorry.
My suggestion is to call your brokerage and tell them that you recently sold some funds with capital gains and you want to understand how they will report them. They should be able to clear up your questions.
Going forward, you should be aware that keeping track of the cost base for ETFs is much harder, so you might want to reconsider that decision.
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2017/01/26/ask-the-spud-can-i-make-taxable-investing-easier/
Oh! Yes, I can see the fund’s book value. I’d imagined the bank posts the book value *according to what I transferred in*, i.e., the market value on the day I transferred it in. But no, the book value remains the same, no matter how many times the fund is moved. Okay, great!!
When I spoke with RBC Direct Investing today, they said the fund (e.g. VUN) sends the info RBC DI, then RBC DI develops the T3 reflecting each fund inside my account. (This detail becomes moot now that I’ve learned the book value is correct as of the date of purchase, regardless of a transfer from firm to firm in the meantime.)
Again oh! That I can’t make the gain go away (by repurchasing) anyway. Okay.
I did talk with the brokerage for a very long time today, and did have several questions answered, but not these ones.
Thank you very much!
@J: Happy if I could help.
What RBC told you about T-slips is true, but T-slips only report dividends, interest, and other distributions from the funds. If you buy and sell shares of an ETF and realize a gain or loss, this is not reported on a T-slip. Only the brokerage has that information (not the fund company) and they are responsible for reporting it to you in a separate document.
Oh, interesting!
So, for ETFs inside an RDSP, RESP, RRSP, TFSA, this is a nonissue? But for ETFs inside a nonregistered account, my tax accountant and I need to watch for additional statements and report amounts from those too?
Also, I read this: “…capital gains can be triggered when you change investments within your taxable account. If the new investments are substantially different than the original investments, or the same old investment is repurchased more than 31 days later, this will trigger capital gains.” [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tea-nicola/types-of-investment-taxes-canada_b_8192974.html]
So, would buying back part or all of one of my investments limit capital gains?
@J: RE: your first question, yes, you are correct that holding ETFs in registered accounts is much easier because there is no bookkeeping or tax reporting to worry about.
I am not sure what the author of the Huffington Post article is referring to in that sentence, and no details are provided in the piece. You cannot limit or reduce realized gains after the fact by buying back the investment. If you could, then no one would ever pay capital gains taxes!
The 30-day rule is there to prevent the opposite problem: that is, an investor has a large unrealized capital loss, sells the investment to harvest the loss for the tax benefit (it can de deducted from other gains), and then buys it back immediately. If you did that, you’d get the tax benefit without actually giving anything up, so CRA considers this a “superficial loss” and does not allow you to deduct it.
Thank you so much! So glad I thought to bring my questions here. I will indeed not buy ETFs, then, in the nonregistered account. I’ll use the amount in the nonregistered to top up my registered ones in January, then go TD eseries with anything left :)
You’re such a gift to us!