Q: Transferring photos doesn't retain original photo date. Assigns current date and time

From where to where are you transferring photos?  If you create new image fies, the file creation date may change, but if you are exporting photos from the Photos.app to folders on your MAc, the the capture date EXIF tag will be preserved.

To an external HD

And how did you transfer them? If you open one in Preview do you see the correct dates using the inspector?

With very limited information formation from  you my best guess is the you are looking at the file dates using the finder - those have nothing to do with the Photo, they only describe the file that holds he data (like the postmark on an envelope has nothing to do with the date of the photo or latter inside the envelope)

The Photo date information is inside the photo in the EXIF/IPTC data - the file metadata is totally separate and is  only associated with the file not the photo

LN

Has this been fixed or is there some work around?  Is there someway to preserve the created on date?  The whole reason I got this this mac was for my pictures and now every last file is dated wrong.  Don't tell me about the EXIF tag.  I want my photos to be sorted by the date they were CREATED not they date they were imported into my mac.  I have 10s of thousands of pictures and changing all of their dates is not an option. 

Is there someway to preserve the created on date?

It is preserved if you export the original or edited photo from the library.  But you have to view the EXIF Creation Date with an application that can read it like Preview, Photos, or  EXIF Viewer for Mac OS X.

The date you're looking at in the Finder is the "file" creation date and is tied to the file, not the image.  It will change every time a new copy of the file is created, i.e. copying from one volume to another.