The CRA wants to know if you profited from reselling those Taylor Swift tickets

financialpost.com:

Taylor Swift wrapped up her 149-show, 20-month Eras Tour with a sold-out concert in front of 60,000 fans in Vancouver on Sunday night. And, while an estimated 10 million lucky fans globally got to attend one of her shows, countless others benefited from reselling their coveted tickets, for profits in the thousands of dollars.

For example, a relative told me that he got a pre-sale code to buy tickets, with the intention of taking his fiancée, but when he found out how much he could get for his three floor-level seats to one of the six Toronto shows, he decided to sell the tickets online. He cleared over $10,000 in profit – enough to pay for the band at his wedding reception next summer. Similarly, a Toronto friend was able to secure tickets in the pre-sale to attend one of the Vancouver shows with his two adult daughters, but after researching the cost of flights and finding exorbitant hotel rates for the weekend, decided to resell the tickets online, pocketing thousands in profit.

When I nonchalantly reminded each of them not to forget to report their ticket resale profits on their 2024 tax returns, they each seemed somewhat surprised. Which begs the question: Is the profit from the sale of concert tickets really taxable, and, if so, how should it be reported on your Canadian tax return?

I would suggest that, for most people, other than professional ticket-resellers who make it their business to buy and sell tickets at a profit, concert tickets are capital property, meaning that the profit from a resale of tickets would be treated as a capital gain. That is, the proceeds received from the sale, less the cost of the tickets (your adjusted cost base or ACB) would be a capital gain.

For individuals with less than $250,000