February 5, 2025 - Release Notes - Capital Gains Inclusion Rate Changes Deferred

On January 31, 2025, the effective date for the new capital gains inclusion rate changes was deferred from June 25, 2024, to January 1, 2026. Additional details on the announcement can be found in the Department of Finance Canada's News release.

As a result of this deferral, we've made adjustments to the options available on the Scenario Setup -> Settings -> Income Taxes page. You can now select to apply the increased capital gains inclusion rate (i.e., 2/3 inclusion with a personal annual threshold of $250,000) settings as of January 1, 2026 (by selecting 2026) or assume that the current inclusion rate (i.e., 1/2 inclusion) remains in place permanently (by selecting Never).

How does this change affect Existing Scenarios?

Existing scenarios will not be impacted. Your setting will remain unchanged to prevent unexpected changes to numbers throughout your existing projection. You can adjust the setting to recalculate your projection as needed. If you change your assumption from 2025 to Never or 2026, you will not be able to revert to applying the new capital gains inclusion rate as of 2025.

What is the default setting for New Scenarios?

For new scenarios, we've changed the default setting to Never. Our default assumptions in Snap are based on rules and laws when available and otherwise consider likelihoods (i.e., what is a user likely to set the value to with full knowledge of its implications) with a conservative slant (i.e., where there's no clear preference, use the more conservative option).

As the proposed changes aren't yet law, we consulted with users and learned that the majority are now assuming as a base case that the capital gains inclusion rate changes will not be implemented as currently structured. As a result, the default setting for new scenarios will be Never, with the option to change the assumption to 2026 to apply the new rates.