Reporting crypto on T1135 — how much of this can I do myself?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: the analysis asks whether the holding is specified foreign property and whether it is held with a foreign custodian.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
Do I need to file T1135 for crypto if I never sold anything?
Reporting turns on what you held and what it cost, not on whether you disposed of anything. A year in which you bought and simply held can still require the report, while a year of heavy trading that ended with very little held may not. This is the opposite of how most people think about crypto tax, which is why the obligation is missed so often. The measurement is on cost rather than on market value, so a holding that has grown a great deal may still sit outside the requirement, and one bought near a peak may fall inside it despite being worth less now.
Is crypto held on a foreign exchange specified foreign property?
That is the right question to ask, and it has two parts. The first is whether the holding is the kind of property the rules reach at all. The second is where it is situated or deposited, which for crypto usually means whether it sits with a platform outside Canada rather than with one inside it. The two parts are answered separately and both have to be satisfied. The practical consequence is that the same coin can be reportable or not depending on where it is held, so the custody arrangement has to be established for each holding before anything is computed.
How do I convert my crypto cost into Canadian dollars?
At the rate on the day of each acquisition, applied consistently and documented. This is straightforward in principle and the single largest practical obstacle in this area, because the report is measured on cost and cost is denominated in whatever the trade was priced in. Exchange exports often give a price in another currency, or in another coin, and rarely give a Canadian dollar figure. Choose a rate source, record which one you used, and apply it to every acquisition in the same way. Reconstructing this years later, from platforms that may no longer exist, is where most of the cost of these engagements sits.
Do transfers between my own wallets count as disposals?
No, but they very often look like disposals in the records, and that is a real problem rather than a cosmetic one. A move from a platform to your own wallet appears in the export as a withdrawal, and the arrival appears elsewhere as a deposit or, worse, as an acquisition at the day's price. Left uncorrected, this inflates both the cost figure and the apparent activity, which distorts the report and the income return with it. Before anything is computed, the transfers have to be matched to each other and removed from the disposal set, with the matching kept as working papers.
Does crypto in a wallet I control myself have to be reported?
It depends on the analysis of where the property is held rather than on a rule about self-custody, and the answer is not the same for everyone. A holding under your own keys is not held with a foreign custodian in the way an exchange balance is, which matters to the second half of the test. But the first half, whether the property is within the scope of the rules at all, does not go away. Holdings are commonly split across both arrangements, so the sorting has to be done holding by holding, dated, and recorded in a way that supports whatever position is taken.
I have staking and NFT income, how does that affect my reporting?
It affects two things, and they are separate. Staking rewards, yield and NFT proceeds have to be characterised for the income return first, because whether an amount is income when received, and at what value, determines the cost of what you then hold. That cost is what feeds the foreign property report. So a characterisation that has never been settled leaves both the return and the report resting on nothing. Deal with them in that order. Where the characterisation is genuinely uncertain, write the position down with its reasoning, so a later question is answered from a record rather than from memory.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
How would a foreign tax authority know I am resident there?
Mostly from information you or your bank already provided. Account-opening forms ask you to self-certify tax residence, and that certification is reported between authorities under the Common Reporting Standard or, for US accounts, under the FATCA framework. Beyond that: employer and payroll filings, property registries, immigration records and the tax filings of anyone who paid you. The realistic planning assumption is that the data arrives. See FATCA and information reporting.
