Category: Cheapskates

MyACB: A new ACB Tool

RobHLeave a comment

ACB stands for “Adjusted Cost Base”, and is something you need to care about if you have non-registered stocks/ETFs that you buy and sell. If you don’t track your ACB, you can’t calculate the capital gains and losses for a given asset sale.

“But that’s what the T5008 is for, isn’t it?”

Theoretically, yes, but online brokers are notoriously sloppy with tracking ACB and hence your T5008 may not track capital gains properly. Some common reasons why this is are:

  • You hold the same asset at multiple brokers (or even within multiple accounts at the same broker). The CRA doesn’t care where you own the asset, they only care that you own the asset. No matter how many ways and in how many accounts the asset is sliced, CRA considers there to be only one ACB for all of them.
  • You move the asset from one broker to another and the ACB gets set incorrectly by the receiving broker
  • Your asset is priced in USD and your broker is using a different FX rate from you1
  • Your asset delivers a return of captial (RoC for short) which lowers your ACB (and increases future capital gains); your broker may or may not track this on your behalf
  • Your asset reinvests dividends into the fund (this sounds the same as a DRIP, but it isn’t — it’s commonly known as a “phantom distribution”). This increases your ACB.
  • Your asset undergoes a share split or share merge.

For these reasons, I don’t trust T5008s, and I track my own ACB. In Tools I Use I mention the ACB tool I use; it’s the one I have been using for many years now, namely Adjusted Cost Base. (Before that I think I used an Excel template…which I converted to ClarisWorks format, but I digress…)

I use the free version of Adjusted Cost Base because it suits my needs, and I wasn’t aware of a reasonable alternative, and I’m a cheapskate. But it seems there is one now — MyACB. I gave MyACB a quick spin this week, here’s how it compares to Adjusted Cost Base, both in “Free” mode:

User InterfacePortfolios Automated FX Automated RoC and phantom distributions Import from other sourcesPay models
Adjusted Cost Base Not pretty; subscription eliminates ads– two; 5 with subscriptionNoNo, requires subscriptionNo, requires subscription$49/year
MyACB Pretty– one; 5 with family subscription,
100 with “pro” subscription 		YesFor one asset only; more assets require subscriptionYes$29/year for family

$99/year for pro2

User Interface

Adjusted Cost Base won’t win any graphic design awards3. The design is functional but not at all modern looking. MyACB looks like a modern website. Dark mode? Check. Logical layout? Check. And at present, MyACB is ad-free4.

One big thing MyACB does better than Adjusted Cost Base is its support for editing portfolios, specifically related to deleting symbols. It’s far too easy to accidently trash an in-use symbol in Adjusted Cost Base. MyACB makes it very clear how destructive your desired action will be and asks for a specific and impossible-to-click-too-fast confirmation!

Portfolios

Tracking ACB for me means tracking it in my account, my spouse’s account, and our joint account. So that’s three portfolios. And I try to hold different assets in different portfolios to avoid raising the CRA’s ire.

Anyway, my three portfolios exceed the “free” capacity of both products; I get around the restriction by having my spouse have her own Adjusted Cost Base account to track her portfolio. Not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience. With MyACB it would be a bit trickier.

Once nice thing that MyACB does here is support for a “Group” of portfolios. This allows for a user to have multiple portfolios at multiple brokers to keep an eye on superficial losses. I wasn’t able to test this function, since MyACB is limited to one portfolio in the free version. But I can see it as being useful. (In my case, as an Adjusted Cost Base user, I just merge all my transactions across multiple accounts into one portfolio and achieve the same result. The MyACB model is cleaner and more useful).

Automated FX

Since I trade in both USD and CAD, I need to know what the CAD<->USD exchange rate is on day of settlement5. If you only hold CAD-denominated assets, then this won’t matter to you.

Here the free version of MyACB wins hands down. MyACB will do FX calculations for you by looking up the FX rate on the day of settlement. This is a something Adjusted Cost Base makes you enter manually.

Automated RoC and phantom distributions

ETFs have a habit of using these means of distributing money to their unit holders. I’m no tax accountant, but you can read all about these weird distributions over on both of the websites

Both tools offer support for these, no issue there. I’ve been tracking these distributions in Adjusted Cost Base for years.

MyACB adds a small teaser in the free version that allows you to automatically add these transactions for any ONE asset in your portfolio6. So if your non-registered account has one asset, this might be construed as useful. For me, and my 10 different non-registered assets, it’s merely an effort to entice me to pony up and pay for the family version of MyACB. Anyway, I tried it out and it performs as advertised, and is an exceedingly useful feature, but in the free version, it’s really just a way to kick the tires for most of us.

But compared to the free version of Adjusted Cost Base, one thing missing is support for multiple portfolios. Adjusted Cost Base’s free version supports two portfolios. I actually need three portfolios: one for my account, one for my spouse’s account, and one for our joint account. To get around that restriction, my spouse tracks her portfolio in her own Adjusted Cost Base account.

.

Import from other sources

Adjusted cost base doesn’t offer this in their free version, but it’s in the subscription version.

MyACB allows this in the free version, not too surprising, since it’s the new kid in town. The feature seems well thought out, and includes contributions from others (“schemas”) to save you time in figuring out how to map fields to MyACB.

I did try to do an export from Adjusted Cost Base to MyACB and ran into a few problems:

  • The way splits are modelled in the two platforms is different. MyACB puts the split ratio in a dedicated field, whereas Adjusted Cost Base puts in two places — once in the Transaction field and once in the Shares field. A bit of Google Sheets post-processing can fix this, but this may be a problem for a user less familiar with string manipulations.
  • In MyACB, the ticker symbol is mandatory, whereas in Adjusted Cost Base it isn’t.
  • Adjusted Cost Base doesn’t call out the currency used, just the exchange rate, and a “yes/no” if it’s a foreign currency transaction. MyACB stores the currency “kind” (e.g. USD, EUR etc). Again, a minor difference, but one that requires some thought as to how to covert one to the other.

Am I switching?

For the moment, no. Adjusted Cost Base meets my needs, and it would require some work for me to move to MyACB. To get the most out of the switch, I would have to pony up for a family plan given the portfolio limitations in MyACB’s free version. If you’re just starting out in getting help with your ACB tracking, either tool will meet your needs. MyACB has some nice features in the free version (automatic FX lookups, transaction importing) that warrant giving it a close look.

What do you think? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca!

  1. There’s more than one acceptable way to do this. What I do is find the Bank of Canada rate on the settlement date and use that. ↩︎
  2. “Tax pros” is an assumption on my part. I don’t see how even the most dedicated DIYer has a need for 100 portfolios… ↩︎
  3. I see that the top hat guy for Adjusted Cost Base’s logo has had a makeover; he looks a little less scary and seems to have given up cigars. ↩︎
  4. I do respect the need for content creators and developers to be compensated somehow for the work they do. The ads on Adjusted Cost Base are quite prominent and can be quite distracting. ↩︎
  5. You track your ACB in Canadian dollars, always. And you convert each transaction — buy or sell — to CAD. ↩︎
  6. The UI to do this is a bit (uncharacteristically) clunky, in my view — you can only import one year of transactions at a time, which gets tedious pretty quickly. ↩︎

Wealthsimple: Tax mini-review

RobHLeave a comment

Ah, Tax Season. No surprise — I do my own taxes. I have been the “tax man” for many years, filling out taxes for me and my spouse, my parents (when they were alive), my mother-in-law…

For many years, I used TurboTax as my go-to software, taking advantage of the annual discount rate offered to CIBC customers. I include this research should any of you (a) bank with CIBC and (b) use TurboTax (which used to be called QuickTax).

Anyway, I don’t use TurboTax anymore. TurboTax had a nasty bug a few tax seasons ago related to Final Returns (I was filling out my late father’s final tax return) and after spending several hours with support, who ultimately admitted there was some bug, advised me to direct a call to the developer line and explain the problem to them — from scratch — I was less than impressed. And this after enduring yet another price increase (usually hidden as “upgrades” to do simple tasks, like add capital gains) I decided to look elsewhere for my tax filing needs.

I think it was a Rob Carrick column1 that advised me that upstart Wealthsimple offered tax software which was free2. As a certified cheapskate, “free” was certainly a price I could get behind. And so I gave it a try a few years ago.

I think Wealthsimple uses Tax as a loss-leader to get you started on their platform. It certainly worked that way for me. I started using just Tax, then added a prepaid Mastercard (no-fee FX), then added an RRSP/RRIF account (to get a new laptop), now a few savings accounts, investment account, Wealthsimple Visa card….

Anyway, you might be dubious about a free product, but it works great. It supports everything you would expect including auto-fill, eFile, saving information across tax years so you don’t have to type excessively, support for joint filing with your spouse…I’ll note that my tax needs are relatively simple: T4s, T5s, T3s, plenty of non-registered stock sales that generate capital gains and losses…Compared to QuickTax, Wealthsimple Tax is a little less user-friendly but a little easier to skip around. It didn’t take long for me to find my way around.

The hidden cost? You have to setup a login with an email address, and this will generate Wealthsimple marketing emails, which may or may not be welcome3. The Recommendations section includes helpful tips aka upsell opportunities like opening a TFSA to avoid paying tax on bank interest. But to me, it’s a fair trade.

  1. Mr. Carrick now has a Substack too. Retirement for him I guess means “doing the same stuff I did before without deadlines”, which is good news for the DIY investor. ↩︎
  2. Wealthsimple added Tax to their lineup back in 2019 with the acquisition of SimpleTax, a product some of you may know…? ↩︎
  3. I do like their Monday newsletter called TLDR. ↩︎

What are the best credit cards?

RobH1 Comment

The best credit cards for me are not necessarily the best cards for you. I don’t find I’ve changed my spending habits much in retirement, but being retired has meant I can spend a bit more time trying to optimize my credit card holdings to maximize benefits to me. One thing that I value above all else is cold, hard, cash. I don’t like “points” cards because understanding what kind of ROI I’m getting is nearly impossible, and always subject to the whims of a points to dollar conversion rate that can be changed at any time. I’m now holding three different credit cards, all of whom pay cash back, and all of them have their place in my spending universe.

Primary Card: Rogers Red World Elite Mastercard

Read about it here. As a Rogers customer1, this card is really the best possible card for my needs:

  • No fees
  • 2% cash back on everything, paid as a reward credit that you then immediately apply to subsequent card purchases; this reward credit is multiplied by 1.5 if you apply it to a subsequent card purchase for a Rogers service.
  • 3% cash back on USD purchases, which erases the 1.5% FX fee charged, and then some
  • Travel insurance, purchase insurance, etc etc
  • Free supplementary cards

The problem with this card is that its credit limit is a bit low; I even asked for an increase and was denied2.

The other problem with this card is that it’s not tied to my normal banking, so I have to pay it manually3. And it only offers a login for the primary card holder, which isn’t ideal.

Secondary Card: CIBC Costco Mastercard

Read about that one here. This one is actually a conversion from another CIBC card I had. Converting a card from one kind to another means you don’t lose your credit limit, which was the main appeal here. I am a Costco member, so this is a good second choice for my needs:

  • no fees
  • 1% cash back on everything except 2% back on gas and Costco.ca, and 3% back on Costco gas4 and restaurants5
  • Cashback paid annually in the form of a Costco gift certificate
  • Travel insurance, purchase insurance etc etc
  • Free supplementary cards

The travel card: Wealthsimple Visa

I’ve been on the waitlist (like many people) for quite a few months for this card now. I finally got my card when I called their support line to query about why a transaction on their prepaid Mastercard6 failed to complete. (Turns out there’s a daily limit on that card that can’t be modified). Anyway, the helpful agent offered to put in a good word for me and a few days later, I was able to successfully apply for the card and immediately download it to my phone7.

The Wealthsimple Visa’s features are a lot like the others:

  • no fee (if you have enough assets with Wealthsimple)
  • 2% cash back on everything, paid into your account every month
  • travel insurance, purchase insurance, etc etc
  • and…most importantly for me, NO foreign exchange fees for any currency

With no foreign exchange fees, Wealthsimple’s Visa becomes the go-to card anytime I’m travelling to a non-US destination. It also becomes my primary card in the event that I cut ties with Rogers, since the only thing the Rogers card does better than the Wealthsimple card is paying for Rogers services.

The Wealthsimple card had a better credit limit than the Rogers card right out of the gate (I guess it helps that I had hard assets with them) but inexplicably does not have the concept of a secondary card, so my spouse is currently locked out of that benefit.

The card that got cut: the CIBC Aventura USD Gold Visa

This was a card I had for a few years when US travel was a more frequent (desirable?) option. It’s not a bad card, especially if you frequently transact in USD, but with two other cards that offered “good enough” coverage on USD purchases, I felt it was no longer needed. And (I forgot this) when I canceled my almost-never-used CIBC USD checking8 account, I lost the “no-fee” aspect of this card. At a cost of zero I might have been convinced to hang on to it “just in case”, but with a $35 annual fee (USD) it was no longer required. An hour long wait on hold with CIBC telephone banking was all it took9.

What card is used when?

  • For foreign currency transactions, Wealthsimple Visa card is best. Rogers card also a good option if USD.
  • For Costco gas and restaurants, Costco card is best.
  • Anything else, Rogers
  1. Internet, television, home phone, if you’re curious. 2 year contract which I’ll probably break at the earliest opportunity 😉 ↩︎
  2. Admittedly, this hurt my feelings a bit. ↩︎
  3. I could set up a PAD, but I trust Rogers about as much as they trust me, it seems. ↩︎
  4. There’s no advantage to actually shopping at a Costco store with this card, which seems weird. My weekly Costco grocery run is paid for with my Rogers Mastercard, since I get 2x the cash back <shrug>. What’s more, the Costco I usually frequent doesn’t have a gas station, and I’m not really willing to make a special trip to go get it — my CAA/Shell combination is about as good. ↩︎
  5. These 2% and 3% rewards have annual caps, but I got bored trying to memorize them ↩︎
  6. Part of Wealthsimple’s chequing account, a good product, in my view ↩︎
  7. Great timing too, since I was in a foreign country at the time. ↩︎
  8. I use American spelling here because (a) that’s how CIBC spells it and (b) it really is a US-domiciled account ↩︎
  9. Writing that sentence has confirmed for me how low my standards for customer service have become. ↩︎

News: Wealthsimple Norbert’s Gambit in Beta

RobHLeave a comment

Norbert’s Gambit is a way to save money on USD/CAD conversions. (Want to learn more? I’ve written about it here). Most brokers take extra margin points on these conversions, hidden in the relatively crappy exchange rate you actually get. Since a lot of my retirement holdings are in USD, and since I am a cheapskate, I’ve used Norbert’s Gambit at three different brokerages (BMO Investorline, QTrade and Questrade1) over the years.

And now, Wealthsimple has joined the fray. It’s not open to the general public quite yet, but I did get a notification that I can now perform the Gambit on this platform. This brings Wealthsimple agonizingly close to being a contender for my retirement savings business. They only lack (puzzlingly) USD support in RRIF accounts. Otherwise, they check the other boxes in my “need to have” list for any broker:

  • $0 trading commissions
  • Support for USD accounts in non-registered, RRIF, and spousal RRIF2
  • Norbert’s Gambit3

Wealthsimple’s implementation of the Gambit seems to mirror that of Questrade insofar as they charge a $9.95 plus tax fee for journaling shares, a necessary step of performing the Gambit. There are a few oddball wrinkles documented on their website, none of them show-stoppers in my view:

  • Not available on the Wealthsimple app
  • You can only journal DLR/DLR.U. Other cross-listed shares aren’t supported4.
  • The journaling fee is always charged in Canadian dollars, and by the language used on the website, it sounds like you are blocked from doing the journaling unless you have the cash in your account at the time of the request5

Normally I’d give the feature a whirl to see if it’s comparable to the Questrade/QTrade experience, but I only hold CAD assets at Wealthsimple at the moment. It’s not really a complicated thing to do, the only way Wealthsimple could make the experience better is to do the journaling faster. I’ve documented the timelines involved with doing the Gambit at Questrade here.

  1. Other brokers also support it, but I just have no personal experience with it. ↩︎
  2. Wealthsimple doesn’t support this per their website ↩︎
  3. People (especially on Reddit) frequently cite Interactive Brokers as the best game in town to do currency conversions. I did at one time have an IB account, and I can confirm that their currency conversion rates across the board are a pittance, and in most cases will be cheaper (and faster) than even Norbert’s Gambit. HOWEVER, if you want to actually get hold of the cash you’re converting, then you can expect VERY long delays before you are allowed to withdraw the funds. ↩︎
  4. Most people use DLR/DLR.U to do the Gambit but it isn’t obligatory. At BMO Investorline, if you didn’t want to place a phone call, you had to use some other share combination (I usually chose a Canadian bank stock like RY). Not sure this is still true. ↩︎
  5. Questrade lets you carry a negative balance, but of course they will charge interest on that. ↩︎

News: Wealthsimple offering free money

RobH3 Comments

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but yes, there’s another offer out in the market that demonstrates the seemingly never-ending gravy train for the DIY investor who isn’t too dedicated to any particular broker.

It’s Wealthsimple’s turn, again, with a promotion they are calling “The Un(Real) Deal”. Marketing page here, Ts and Cs here, but step one, as in all Wealthsimple promotions, is a registration for the promotion that is painless, but must be done by March 31, 2026. After registering, you have 30 days to initiate account transfers.

In this promotion, Wealthsimple is trying to keep the rewards modest for the deal-hopper, but are pretty darn attractive for the more loyal investor. When you register for the promotion, you pick a lock-in period for transferred-in funds of one of:

  • 1 year, and get 1% cash back payable over 12 months
  • 2 years, and get 3% cash back payable over 36 months
  • 5 years, and get 3% cash back payable over 60 months1

What is particularly noteworthy about this promotion (besides the 3% cash back) is that the maximum you can earn in free money is 3% of five million dollars2. That’s (checks math) $150,000 possible in free money. That is a nice slice of pizza, if you ask me.

It appears that the usual kinds of accounts count as eligible for the promotion: non-registered, TFSAs, RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs, LIRAs…One missing is spousal RRIFs, but spousal RRSPs are shown, so not sure about that.

If you’re tired of missing out on the gravy train, this could be an even better deal than the aforementioned Questrade deal.

Anyway, there you have it. This is one that I will take a closer look at. If you want a little extra incentive, you can use my referral code and get some additional free cash.

  1. I (meaning chatGPT) ran the numbers at various discount rates (0%,5%,10%) and the present value of 5 year deal always came out ahead. My MSci prof would be so proud of me. At 10% discount rate, the PV of the three options assuming $200k is moved is $1900, $3350, and $4720. ↩︎
  2. Yeah, ok, I know most people aren’t moving that kind of dosh, but normally these promotions are capped at a much lower dollar amount. The aforementioned Questrade deal is capped at a maximum reward of $20k, requiring $750k to be moved across 3 accounts. ↩︎