move from canada to US, then sold stock in canadian brokage

[majiamao]

Hello,
I moved from Canada to US in 2008, around Oct. I did 2008 depature tax return to CRA.
I sold some stock in my Canadian stock account, I understand I should report the capital gain or loss in my US tax return, using the stock price on the day I entered US as cost basis, but the question is should it be counted as long-term capital gain or short-term? can I count it as long-term capital gain/loss since I actually bought this stock in 2003. I will still use the 2008 Oct stock price as by cost basis though.


Thanks a lot.

[nelsona]

correct

[majiamao]

Thank you for the reply, when I browsed through the forum, I found this thread:
http://forums.serbinski.com/viewtopic.php?t=294

it seems to me that I have a choice to 'CHOOSE' the cost basis when I report capital gain or loss. For example, I bought 1000 shares of stock X at 5 USD in 2003, when I left Canada entered US in 2008, the Stock price was 2 USD, when I sold it in 2009, the Stock price was 3 USD.

According to that thread, It seems that I have the following choices:
1) claim 2000 USD capital loss if I use 10 USD as my 'normal' cost basis: 3000 - 5000 = -2000 USD
2) report 1000 capital gain, if I use 'deemed' cost basis: 3000 - 2000 = 1000

My question is:
Can I do method 1) instead of 2)? Do I have to provide any proof for the 'original' cost I bought the stock?

Thanks a lot

[nelsona]

Of course you have a choice.

You don;t provide proof. You keep records.

[skoper]

A follow-up question to this.
When in the US as a resident, do I need to transfer my non-registered holdings to a US brokerage to incur capital loss to be written off against my US income? Currently, I own securities with a Canadian non-reg broker (my US address is registered with them).

[nelsona]

You need to sell the investment to incur the loss, regardless in which country the brokerage is in.

A transfer wil not trigger anything.