Canadians who made a profit off reselling Taylor Swift Eras tour tickets could be on the hook for taxes they were not expecting.
However, one tax expert told Global News that it would not apply to everyone.
“I think for the majority of people, you bought tickets on the intention to maybe go to the concert,” Aaron Doucet CPA, product manager at TaxCycle from Xero, told Global News.
“I know I had multiple friends that did that and then resold them for large profits, and the CRA could look at that as a capital gain. There are some specific rules with personal use property, but by and large, the theory could look at that and treat that as a taxable capital gain.”
Doucet said if anyone is unsure it is best to check the CRA website or call them.
Personal property use has a limit of about $1,000, so if anyone bought or made under $1,000 for the tickets and it was deemed personal use property, it might not qualify for capital gains tax, Doucet explained.
“But other than that, there’s no real limit when it comes to capital gains or threshold as to when it becomes a capital gain,” he added.
“It really is whether it’s a business income versus capital gains is the thing that taxpayers want to be careful about.”
When Swift was in Vancouver, tickets were being resold for thousands of dollars.
Over three nights in December, BC Place hosted 160,000 fans for the final dates of Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour.
For the three days and many before, Taylor-themed events and menus took over Vancouver.
With more than $2 billion in ticket sales worldwide, the Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time.
It is estimated the economic impact on B.C. was around $160 million.
Doucet said that for anyone who sold Swift tickets, the intent behind the sale matters.
“A personal matter came up and you therefore resold the tickets, intent there does matter because that would go a long way to determining whether it’s a personal use property or just a capital property that you resold,” he explained.
Doucet said anyone who did resell tickets would want to work with the CRA on the intent behind the sale.
“The CRA has been known to use what’s called the Unnamed Persons Act, where they can actually work with third parties like Ticketmaster to get information on people buying and reselling tickets to make sure that they are keeping track of this at a macro level.”
Doucet said that if anyone is thinking of not reporting this income, he advises against trying to hide it from the CRA.
“If you have income that you have, you should report it because you don’t want to be hit with penalties of failure to report,” he said.
“And if you’re unsure as to what is income, what is taxable income? What is a capital gain? I can’t stress enough how great the CRA is to work with.”