Paying capital gains tax on a loss + MORE Apr 24th

Ottawa has talked with provinces about helping Canada’s forestry sector, but won’t move immediately once the U.S. imposes duties on softwood lumber imports, a government source says.
A financial package can’t be determined until the federal government studies the penalties that are expected to be announced Tuesday, said an official who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
It took the federal government more than a year to announce the first of two aid packages after duties were imposed in 2001.
The U.S. Commerce Department is slated to announce Tuesday preliminary countervailing duties on Canadian imports. A decision on anti-dumping duties is expected to follow on June 23.
Industry analysts expect the combined duties could range between 30 and 40 per cent with three top Western producers being charged more than Resolute Forest Products (TSX:RFP) and New Brunswick’s J.D. Irving. An average rate will be applied to other companies…

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Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan
Has the unwinding process for the Toronto real estate market finally begun?  Time will tell I guess but I think it’s rather too little too late.
Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan brings a list of changes.  Here are some highlights from the plan:

Rent control will be applied to all units, including those now built after 1991.
Legislation will, if passed, impose implement a new 15% Non-Resident Speculation Tax (NRST) on the price of homes in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) purchased by individuals who are not citizens or permanent residents of Canada or by foreign corporations.
Annual rent increases for existing tenants will be no higher than the rate of inflation.
*Rent increases will be capped at 2.5%, even if the rate of inflation is higher.
There will be a standardized lease agreement for all tenants.
Bans are now imposed on flipping pre-construction housing units.

*The guideline rent increase for 2017 is 1…

Ten years. That’s how long it took our U.S. All-Star stocks to recover from an ill-timed start. After a decade and two quarters a $10,000 invested in an equal weighted basket of MoneySense’s U.S. All-Star Stocks would put you about US$1 ahead of what you would have if you owned the S&P 500 over the same period.

View the Canadian All-Star stocks report card »

The U.S. All-Stars launched just as the financial markets started to melt down. The fact our loss occurred when we launched meant our stocks had to perform significantly better than the benchmark to make up the lost ground. And they did. Once the markets settled down the U.S. All-Star stocks climbed 374% while the S&P 500 enjoyed its own still-remarkable run of 235%.
Our track record of outperformance has continued in the six months since we selected our U.S. All-Star Stocks. Since October, our top stocks are up almost 15% versusSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which is up a little more than 10% over the same period…

Q: My question today relates to the new changes to capital gains on real estate. My wife and I owned a condo for a number of years. We paid $80,000 in 2006 and sold for $140,000 in March 2016. The problem is we rented the unit out after we bought our house in 2011.  Looking at the new formula for capital gains on real estate,  (# of years home is principal residence + 1)  x capital gain / # of years home is owned, it seems like we’re going to take a huge capital gain hit even though all the capital gain happened in the years before 2011.  In fact, I suspect the property has dropped in value since then.  Are we going to be stuck claiming this capital gain or is there something I’m missing?
– Stefan
A: Stefan, you are deemed to have disposed of your principal residence in 2011 when you started renting it out. The gain up to that point is totally exempt because it was your principal residence for all years that you owned it. This means that you can report the gain (or loss) from 2011 to 2016 as a capital gain (or loss) on your 2016 return…

Barrick Gold reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings on Monday