Sold my Starbucks employee shares without researching tax implications first 🇨🇦
Title: Sold my Starbucks employee shares without researching tax implications first 🇨🇦 1 I've been with Starbucks for quite a few years and just decided to sell my employee shares because I need to buy a car. After selling, I suddenly realized I have to pay tax on the gains I made from the stock. So I sold my shares for about $27k Canadian, and now I'm trying to figure out how much I'll owe the government in taxes. I'll be honest, I'm not super financially savvy and don't really understand how all this works. Could someone explain what percentage I'll need to pay or how to calculate what I'll owe on this? Really appreciate any help explaining this to me! Thanks!
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Keisha Johnson
14 The tax you'll owe depends on a few things. When you sell shares, you're taxed on the capital gain - the difference between what you paid for the shares (your cost basis) and what you sold them for. In Canada, only 50% of your capital gains are taxable. So if you bought the shares for $15k and sold for $27k, your capital gain is $12k, but only $6k would be added to your taxable income. This gets added to your regular income and taxed at your marginal tax rate. Depending on your province and income level, this could be anywhere from about 20% to 50%. So on that $6k of taxable capital gains, you might pay roughly $1,500-$3,000 in additional tax. You should check your employee stock purchase plan statements to find your actual purchase price. Starbucks should have records of what you paid for those shares.
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Keisha Johnson
•7 Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense. So just to be clear, I don't pay tax on the entire $27k, just on the profit portion? And then only half of that profit is actually taxable? Also, does it matter if I bought the shares at different times over the years?
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Keisha Johnson
•14 That's correct - you're only taxed on the profit (capital gain), not the entire amount. And yes, only 50% of that capital gain is added to your taxable income. If you purchased shares at different times (which is common with employee stock plans), it does complicate things a bit. You'll need to calculate the adjusted cost base (ACB) for all your shares. This is essentially the average cost of all shares purchased. You may have documentation from Starbucks showing your ACB, or you might need to calculate it based on your purchase records. Your tax software should have a capital gains calculator to help with this.
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Keisha Johnson
18 I went through almost exactly the same situation with my company shares last year! After trying to figure it all out on my own and getting confused with all the tax forms, I ended up using this tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that specializes in these kinds of situations. I just uploaded my stock purchase statements and sale documents, and it pulled out all the important info automatically - my purchase dates, prices, sale amount, and even calculated the ACB (adjusted cost base) for me since I had bought shares at different times through the employee program. It then showed me exactly what I'd owe in taxes and which forms I needed to file. Made the whole process way easier than I expected.
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Keisha Johnson
•5 Did it work with the Canadian tax forms too? I'm also in Canada and wondering if it handles our tax system or if it's just for US taxes?
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Keisha Johnson
•11 Sounds interesting but I'm skeptical. How accurate was it compared to what you actually ended up owing? I've been burned by tax calculators before that didn't account for all the details.
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Keisha Johnson
•18 Yes, it definitely works with Canadian tax forms! That's actually where I used it - in BC. It's specifically designed to handle both US and Canadian tax situations, so all the calculations were based on Canadian tax laws. For your question about accuracy - it was spot on. What I really liked was that it showed me all the calculations and explained each step. My situation was complicated because I had acquired shares over 3 years through an employee purchase plan with different prices, plus some dividend reinvestments. The final tax amount matched exactly what I ended up paying, and it even pointed out a deduction I would have missed related to some fees I paid when selling.
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Keisha Johnson
11 Just wanted to follow up. I was skeptical about taxr.ai but decided to give it a try anyway for my employee shares from TD Bank. I'm really impressed! It handled all my Canadian tax calculations perfectly and explained everything in simple terms. The best part was it found that I had been calculating my adjusted cost base incorrectly for years - turns out I was entitled to a smaller tax bill than I thought. Definitely worth using if you're dealing with employee stock plans in Canada.
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Keisha Johnson
9 If you're still struggling with getting a clear answer about your tax situation, you might want to try Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). I was in a similar boat last year with some employee shares and needed direct answers from the CRA. Trying to call them was driving me nuts - constant busy signals or being on hold forever. Claimyr connected me with a CRA agent in like 20 minutes instead of the hours I was spending trying to get through on my own. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The agent was able to answer all my specific questions about reporting my stock sales and even helped me understand some deductions I qualified for that offset some of the capital gains tax.
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Keisha Johnson
•3 Wait, so this service gets you through to an actual CRA agent? How does that even work? The CRA phone lines are notoriously impossible to get through.
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Keisha Johnson
•6 This sounds like a scam. There's no way some third party service can magically get you to the front of the CRA queue. Everyone has to wait on hold like normal people.
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Keisha Johnson
•9 It's not about skipping the queue or anything like that. What Claimyr does is automate the calling and waiting process. Basically, they have a system that calls repeatedly when lines are busy and waits on hold for you. Then when a real person finally answers, it connects you to the call. So instead of you personally spending hours redialing or waiting on hold, their system does it. They don't have any special access to the CRA - they're just taking the tedious part of the process off your hands. I was suspicious too until I tried it, but it really did work. Got connected to a real CRA agent who answered all my stock sale questions.
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Keisha Johnson
6 I need to apologize for my skeptical comment earlier. After struggling for TWO DAYS trying to get through to CRA about my capital gains situation, I broke down and tried Claimyr. It actually worked exactly as described. Their system handled all the busy signals and hold time, then my phone rang when an agent was on the line. The CRA agent clarified exactly how to report my employee share sales and even pointed me to a specific form I needed. Saved me hours of frustration and probably a ton in potential penalties for filing incorrectly.
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Keisha Johnson
21 One thing nobody's mentioned yet - you should check if your shares were held in a TFSA or RRSP. If they were in a TFSA, you won't owe any tax at all on the gains. If in an RRSP, you won't owe tax until you withdraw from the RRSP. Most employee share purchase plans are held in regular taxable accounts, but it's worth checking to be sure.
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Keisha Johnson
•1 I didn't even think about that. My shares were just in a regular account through the employee program, not in any tax-sheltered account. I wish I had put them in a TFSA now! Would have saved me a bunch on taxes. Is it too late to do anything about the tax situation now that I've already sold?
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Keisha Johnson
•21 Unfortunately, once you've sold the shares outside of a registered account, you can't retroactively shelter them from tax. The capital gains tax will apply as others have explained. For future reference though, you might want to consider using your TFSA contribution room for any new investments. The annual TFSA contribution limit for 2025 is $7,000, and if you haven't used your room from previous years, you might have quite a bit of contribution space available. Any investments you hold in a TFSA can grow and be sold tax-free.
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Keisha Johnson
16 Has anyone actually calculated what the tax might be for the OP? If you bought at around $15K and sold at $27K, that's a $12K gain. Half of that ($6K) is taxable and gets added to your income. If you're in Ontario and make around $60K otherwise, that $6K would be taxed at roughly 30%, so you'd owe about $1,800 in additional tax. Of course, this varies by province and income level.
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Keisha Johnson
•8 That calculation seems about right based on average tax rates. Important to note that if this pushes OP into a higher tax bracket, a portion could be taxed at a higher rate. Also don't forget that if there were any dividends received while holding the shares, those would have been taxable in the years they were received!
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