Birch Accounting & Tax Services Ltd.

Capital gains deferral for investment in small business

Individuals (other than trusts) may defer capital gains incurred on certain small business investments disposed of in 2018. This deferral applies to dispositions where you use the proceeds to acquire another small business investment. The adjusted cost base (ACB) of the new investment is reduced by the capital gain deferred from the initial investment.

You may acquire shares from a spouse, common-law partner, or parent due to circumstances such as a death or the breakdown of a marriage or common-law partnership. For the purposes of the capital gains deferral, the CRA considers you to have acquired such shares at the time and under the same circumstances that the related individual originally acquired them.

The capital gains deferral is also available to individuals involved in pooling their investments with another person or partnership. If you are part of such a qualifying pooling arrangement, call the CRA for more information.

To qualify for the capital gains deferral for investment in small business, the investment must be in an eligible small business corporation.

Eligible small business corporation shares

The capital gains deferral applies only to eligible small business corporation shares. Eligible small business corporation shares have the following characteristics:

• They consist of common shares issued by the corporation to you, the investor.
• The issuing corporation must be an eligible small business corporation at the time the shares were issued.
• The total carrying value of the assets of the corporation (that is, the amount at which the assets of the corporation would be valued for the purpose of the corporation's balance sheet as of that time if it was prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles used in Canada at that time, except that an asset of a corporation that is a share or debt issued by a related corporation is deemed to have a carrying value of nil) and related corporations cannot exceed $50 million immediately before, and immediately after, the share was issued.
• While you hold the shares, the issuing corporation is an eligible active business corporation.

To be able to defer the capital gain, you must have held the eligible small business corporation shares for more than 185 days from the date you acquired them.

The replacement shares have to be acquired at any time in the year in which the disposition is made or within 120 days after the end of that year.

For example, you acquire eligible small business corporation shares in October 2011 and dispose of them on June 9, 2018. You may acquire the replacement shares on or before April 30, 2019, which is within 120 days after the end of the tax year of the original disposition.

Calculating the capital gains deferral

The capital gains deferral is available for the disposition of eligible small business corporation shares made in 2018. The investment can be made by an individual in any particular corporation (or related group).

The permitted deferral of the capital gain from the disposition of eligible small business corporation shares is determined by the following formula:

Capital gains deferral = B × (D ÷ E)

where

B = the total capital gain from the original sale

E = the proceeds of disposition

D = the lesser of E and the total cost of all replacement shares

For dispositions in 2018, report the total capital gain on lines 131 and 132 of Schedule 3 and the capital gains deferral on line 161 of Schedule 3. The capital gain you must report in the year of disposition will be determined by subtracting the capital gain deferral from the total capital gain realized from the disposition.

ACB reduction

You must use the capital gains deferral to reduce the ACB of each of the eligible replacement shares by the amount determined by the following formula:

ACB reduction = F × (G ÷ H)

where

F = capital gains deferral

G = the cost of replacement shares

H = the total cost of all the replacement shares