To my knowledge, it's less of a problem than it seems. As I understand it, the Wash Sale rule only limits when, and not eventually whether, you can claim a loss.

It's only there to prevent people from attempting to claim based on manipulative trades that appear to create a deductible loss when really there is none.

With reference to your example: buy 30,000 shares ABC for $2, sell for $1.50 ($0.50 loss per share), and then re-buy 15,000 shares within 30 days.

Let's just stop the example there for the moment. CRA treats one share like any other share of the same stock, unless you have made a specific election otherwise. So out of the 30,000 you bought, the 15,000 that "stay sold" (e.g. aren't re-bought), you can claim a loss on.

Now on to the 15,000 that are re-bought within 30 days. If you keep holding on to them through to the next tax year, then you can't claim your 50 cent loss, not yet anyways. However, it's not lost - it is used to increase your ACB (Adjusted Cost Base) for the year whenever you do finally (for more than 30 days) sell the 15,000 "re-bought" shares. So you don't lose the writeoff for the loss - but you can't use it in the same year you re-bought the shares. You have to wait until the shares are well and truly sold for good.

However, your example is different. In it, you finally sell the 15,000 "re-bought" shares in the same year you did everything else with them.

It remains true that the original 15,000 shares loss of $0.50 per share on the "re-bought" shares, you can't claim - at least not as a separate loss - because of the Wash Sale rule. However, the loss is a true cash loss that has increased your ACB (Adjusted Cost Base) - your costs. So, when you sell on December 20, you have to calculate a gain/loss for tax purposes. When you calculate that, you take into account $0.50 per share cost for the first set of trades. It was a legitimate cash cost in acquiring the shares.

The intent of the law is not to prevent you from taking actual cash losses into account in declaring your trading income. The intent is, instead, to prevent people from articificially attempting to crystallize a loss so as to force it into a particular tax year, when in fact for all purposes they bought it back so soon that really they're continuing to hold it. So if you see a dip in prices and want to grab a quick "loss" on shares that in fact you have every intent of holding over to the next tax year, then this law prevents you from pulling a fast one that way. And fairly so.

However, if you completely get rid of all the bought, sold and re-bought shares, all within the same tax year and you don't re-buy them again, then all your true cash trade gains and losses figure in.

Perhaps a tax accountant can provide more data on this. That is my understanding to the best of my knowledge. As they say, "now go consult a professional".