I imported a T5008 from the CRA. Boxes 13, 20 and 21 are in USD. TurboTax does not show box 13 "Currency". Do I need to convert boxes 20&21 to CAD manually?

[TurboTaxVeronique]

Unfortunately, Bos 13 - Foreign currency, is not in TurboTax 2024 software. As per CRA: Foreign currency is usually converted to Canadian funds before it is credited to the recipient's account. We invite you to consult this CRA web page for more information.

We will share your feedback with the proper TurboTax Team.

Thank you for choosing TurboTax.

[Anonymous]

Why hasn't Intuit fixed this yet? 

This has been a problem for years, and many people have told you about it.  We KNOW box 13 is not in Turbotax, but it IS in the data CRA provides for download since I can see it when I log into CRA.  The lazy way for Intuit to fix this would be to show box 13, but we would still have to go through and convert each one ourselves (which is kind of stupid, since we're using software that's supposed to take care of all the calculations for us).  The proper way to fix this would be to show box 13 and add one field where the Bank of Canada specified conversion rate for the year can be entered and then Turbotax would convert all the USD to CAD.

Explaining that foreign currency is converted to CAD when credited to an account "according to the CRA" means Intuit doesn't understand the problem.  The USD are not being converted to CAD since those trades happened within a USD account, which is why box 13 would state USD and is why box 13 is needed.

The real problem is why Intuit has been so uncaring about how well Turbotax actually works, and negligent in fixing a deficiency that has existed for years.

[TurboTaxAniqua]

@Anonymous Unfortunately, Bos 13 - Foreign currency, is not in TurboTax 2024 software. As per CRA: Foreign currency is usually converted to Canadian funds before it is credited to the recipient's account. We invite you to consult this CRA web page for more information.

We will share your feedback with the proper TurboTax Team.

[Anonymous]

Intuit,

Why do you not understand this??

Canadians can have non-registered trading accounts, RRSP trading accounts, and TFSA trading accounts.  Inside each of these, we can have Canadian dollar sides of the account and US dollar sides of the account.

When we buy or sell on the US dollar side of the account the purchase and sale of the stocks occurs in US dollars, and stays in US dollars, in the cash balance, in US dollars, in that USD side of the account.  It never changes to CAD.

The only time a "conversion" happens, is if someone buys a US stock and does that buy or sell in the Canadian dollar side of their account.  In that case the amount debited or credited will be in CAD.  However, everyone is asking about properly supported the buys and sells that happen in the USD side of the account.

At the end of the year, a T5008 will be issued for each buy or sell of stocks in the CAD or USD sides of the account.  For buys or sells in the US side, the T5008 will show "USD" in box 13.  That detail is in the end of year report my bank sends me, and is also visible when I look at the T5008s when I log into CRA.  It's just Intuit that throws away that critical bit of information.

If Intuit is not aware that we can have USD and CAD sides in a trading account, and doesn't understand that a buy or sell done in the USD side is always in US dollars, and has been that way for decades, why is Intuit writing tax software?

[jessz]

I agree. I had the same confusion when I have my Turbotax T5008 auto filled from CRA.

Our T5008 tax slips issued by self-directed trading brokerage do have Box 13 "Foreign Currency", but it is missing from Turbotax software T5008.

I had to consult accountants and the self-directed trading brokerage about how to report US stock transactions on T5008 as we know per CRA "You should report all amounts in Canadian currency, unless the transaction meets the requirements explained in Foreign currency reporting."

Accountants said their tax software has Box 13 available to indicate the currency code on T5008, which makes the currency conversion easy and straightforward.

The Brokerage said unfortunately we have to manually calculate and convert box 20 and box 21 into CDN$, which is not fun.

I noticed that someone replied by quoting from CRA website "Foreign currency is usually converted to Canadian funds before it is credited to the recipient's account."

but please continue reading the rest part. "However, certain taxpayers keep foreign currency accounts and choose to convert their account balances themselves. If you get proceeds of disposition in a foreign currency and deposit the amounts to your client's foreign currency account without converting them to Canadian funds, you can report in the foreign currency that applies. Identify foreign currency amounts by entering in box 13 the applicable currency code under international standard ISO 4217."

I wonder when would Turbotax fix this loophole, it makes no difference as we file T5008 by handwriting each box on paper.

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/comple[product key removed]ri...

Foreign currency reporting

Complete all T5008 slips in Canadian currency. Use the exchange rate that was in effect at the time of the transaction or an average rate that includes the transaction period.

Foreign currency is usually converted to Canadian funds before it is credited to the recipient's account. However, certain taxpayers keep foreign currency accounts and choose to convert their account balances themselves. If you get proceeds of disposition in a foreign currency and deposit the amounts to your client's foreign currency account without converting them to Canadian funds, you can report in the foreign currency that applies. Identify foreign currency amounts by entering in box 13 the applicable currency code under international standard ISO 4217.

[TurboTaxAniqua]

@jessz Thank you for the feedback. The T5008 slips that the CRA issues do not include Box 13, which is a currency code box. 

[jessz]

The T5008 slips that the CRA issues do include Box 13. Other tax software’s T5008 has Box 13 imported by autofill, and they include Exchange rate section, which allows the foreign currency amount to be converted & reported in Canadian currency.

[TurboTaxAniqua]

@jessz We appreciate the update!