Capital Gearing Share Discussion Threads

[pedr01] 10/7/2015 10:14

I thought it was to catch people who took dividends rather that pay themselves an income, so the punitive interpretation looks more likely. Unfortunately there are some people who will be caught in the crossfire. Just my view.

[bluemango] 10/7/2015 09:02

Although not a CGT question, does anyone here have a view on the new dividend tax and whether, if you receive the majority of your income in dividends, the new £5000 allowance is in addition to the personal allowance? I.e. you could in theory receive £16,000 dividend income tax free? (p.a. 11,000 plus dividend allowance 5000). A post budget article by Citywire seemed to think this was the case but some contributers to TMF weren't so sure.



"Another point to consider is that dividend income can also be covered by the personal allowance, ie, the amount of income you are can earn before being taxed. That is set to rise to £11,000 next year, so someone who received the entirety of their income in dividends could receive up to £16,000 of this tax-free."

Personally I'd be surprised if the allowances were added in this way. However it seems particularly punitive for it to kick in at £5000 (regardless of your personal allowance) if dividends are your main income source.

[m_k_hubbert] 13/6/2015 23:16

Re Vodafone, a relative disposed of her holdings in both VOD and VZC last tax year and I've done all the CGT calculations using an Excel spreadsheet. I've been attempting to check my calculations via CGTCalculator.com and am running into problems re the VOD/VZC deal (but the program works fine to check her other share disposals).
Basically the restructuring (R) option does not appear to readily handle the allocation of (approx.) 63.97% / 36.03% VOD/VZC post deal; furthermore given that the 'C Shares' (Income) option was selected I can't readily figure out a way to 'trick' the program into increasing her acquisition costs in accordance with the detailed process outlined on Vodafone's website. I can, of course, simply show the acquisition cost of the new VOD shares in a single transaction based on her pre-deal Section 104 holding cost x 0.6397 plus the allowable extra cost as result of selecting the 'C' option but the number of buying transactions will thus be much reduced (although the CGT calculations should be unaffected).
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has encountered this issue and whether, like me, they decided that the best way to proceed was to use CGTCalculator for everything except VOD and handle the latter manually. I've not yet tried Stonebanks for last tax year but have looked at its documentation and concluded that it probably can't readily cope with the complexity of VOD/VZC either. Thanks in anticipation.

[sos100] 11/6/2015 09:52

Thanks mate.

again appreciate your time.

[gengulphus] 11/6/2015 09:26

not trying to confuse CGT with ISA but if i was to make more than the cgt amount in a ISA and i decide to move all or part of the proceeds back into my bank account is there still any potential tax liability?

so the gains come out of the ISA ,is it still classed as outside of cgt or any other potential tax liabilites?

No to CGT. CGT taxes gains on the basis of when and where they were realised, not in general what you do with them subsequently (*). The gains concerned were realised in the ISA before you withdrew the proceeds and are not subject to CGT because of that: the fact that you subsequently withdrew the proceeds from the ISA doesn't change that.

As regards other UK taxes, I'm not aware of any circumstances in which withdrawing money from an ISA directly causes a tax bill to appear ("directly" because if e.g. you put the withdrawn money in an investment that pays you income, that income will of course be taxable - but the direct cause of that taxable income is buying the investment, while withdrawing the money from the ISA is only an indirect cause, enabling you to buy the investment). Note that I am not aware of every nook and cranny of the UK tax system! - it's conceivable that there are obscure circumstances in which withdrawing money from an ISA would directly cause a tax bill, all I can say is that I'm not aware of any such circumstances.

To complete this answer, if by any chance you're tax-resident abroad, all bets are off - both as regards my knowledge of foreign tax systems (I know almost nothing about them beyond that I personally strongly prefer to avoid them) and as regards the ISA protecting you against any of their taxes (so far as I am aware, ISAs only protect you against UK taxation).

(*) An exception that I believe still exists is reinvestment of the gains in EIS companies, which defers the taxation by CGT of the original gains. But that's pretty much the opposite of what you're envisaging - it's causing a tax bill that would have been payable not to be payable (yet) rather than creating a new tax bill. And if the original gains arose in an ISA, the CGT tax deferral will look around and say "What capital gains? I don't see any capital gains." - as I said, capital gains (and losses) in an ISA are completely invisible to CGT.

sorry if it's a silly question but a couple people have suggested to me that once the money is actually withdrawn its subject to tax so I'm confused,maybe you can set me straight as to if there's any tax liabilities if your putting the money (profits) into your bank account surely that defeats the purpose of having a ISA account.

What they're telling you is that interest earned on that non-ISA bank account will be subject to Income Tax just like any other interest earned on non-ISA bank accounts. Similarly, if you were to invest it in shares, dividends paid by those shares would be subject to Income Tax and capital gains/losses realised when you sell them would be subject to CGT as normal for shares held outside an ISA.

E.g. if you invested £15k in an ISA last tax year, bought some shares with it and have just sold them for £20k, that £5k gain is exempt from CGT. If you now withdraw the £20k from the ISA, use it to buy some other shares, and end up selling those shares for £30k next year, that new £10k gain realised outside an ISA will be subject to CGT - but the original £5k gain remains just as exempt from CGT as it originally was.

Of course, normally it would be better not to withdraw the money from the ISA and instead reinvest it inside the ISA - that way, the extra £10k gain will also be exempt from CGT. However, that's not always possible, because not all shares are allowed investments in an ISA - e.g. if you want to buy shares in a private company a mate is setting up and has offered you a stake in, you can only do that outside an ISA.

Be careful though that there are two cases where investments aren't 'allowed' in an ISA. One is where the tax rules say they're not allowed: those investments simply cannot legitimately be bought in an ISA. The other is where the ISA provider doesn't support that type of investment - for example, an ISA provider might support investments in unit trusts but not in shares: in that case, the solution is to transfer the ISA to a provider who does support the type of investment you want. (And note that you need to do the transfer properly: don't try to do it by withdrawing everything from provider A and then trying to hand it all over to provider B. Instead, you've got to ask the two providers to do the transfer and leave them to actually move everything across.)

Gengulphus

[sos100] 10/6/2015 19:34

sorry Gengulphus- it was me that sent you the message.I was not aware of your preference for posting on the thread.Apologize

not trying to confuse CGT with ISA but if i was to make more than the cgt amount in a ISA and i decide to move all or part of the proceeds back into my bank account is there still any potential tax liability?

so the gains come out of the ISA ,is it still classed as outside of cgt or any other potential tax liabilites?

sorry if it's a silly question but a couple people have suggested to me that once the money is actually withdrawn its subject to tax so I'm confused,maybe you can set me straight as to if there's any tax liabilities if your putting the money (profits) into your bank account surely that defeats the purpose of having a ISA account.

Addressing this question to anyone who can help, Tia.

Ps btw really helpful and great thread, think we all appreciate the time both you and David spend.

[gengulphus] 10/6/2015 13:24

To the person who contacted me by ADVFN "private message": please use these bulletin boards instead of such messages to ask me about CGT. Sorry, but I'm simply not willing to do such stuff privately, partly because only one person benefits that way rather than potentially every reader of the board, partly because if I make a mistake, there's a better chance that someone will catch and correct it. (I'm posting this reply to both CGT boards, by the way, as I don't know which board they came from. And I'm deliberately not identifying the person concerned - I see no reason to 'name and shame' someone about ignoring a strong preference they probably didn't know I have!)

The answer to your question is basically that everything that happens inside an ISA is completely invisible to CGT. List all your trades outside the ISA (I'm assuming you don't have shares in any other tax shelters, such as SIPPs - if you do, take "outside the ISA" to mean "outside the ISA or any other tax shelter") and do your CGT calculations on them; don't even bother listing the trades inside the ISA. In particular, if you have shares in the same company both inside and outside the ISA, only list and perform calculations on the shares outside the ISA - ignore the ones inside it.

I say "basically" above because there are a few awkward cases:

* It is possible to transfer shares out of an ISA. If you do that, your ISA manager is supposed to tell you the value of the shares on the date of the transfer: you then treat them for CGT purposes as though you bought them at that value on the date of the transfer. (If your ISA manager doesn't tell you that information, ask them!)

* In rare circumstances, to do with shares obtained from some types of employee share scheme, it is possible to transfer shares into an ISA. I am not certain just what the CGT treatment is in that case - so if it applies, ask the scheme manager.

* There is also the recent change that someone whose spouse or civil partner dies gets an additional ISA allowance equal to the value of their ISAs on death. I've seen indications that in some circumstances, it's acceptable for the holdings in the deceased's ISAs to be transferred directly into ISAs belonging to their partner. Technically, that probably involves a transfer of the holdings from outside an ISA to inside one, as the general rule is that ISAs cease to be ISAs on the date of death... I'm afraid I don't know the CGT treatment in that case either - a question to ask when going through the admin of getting the extra ISA allowance, I suspect.

* Otherwise, all supposed 'transfers' into ISAs are not in fact transfers at all, but 'bed and ISA' packages of three transactions: a sale of the holding outside the ISA, a cash subscription to the ISA, and a repurchase of the holding inside the ISA (probably slightly reduced by the trading costs). Dealing with their CGT is simply a matter of applying the general rule: pay attention to the sale outside the ISA, ignore the repurchase inside the ISA (and ignore the cash ISA subscription - such subscriptions never have any CGT consequences).

Gengulphus

[gengulphus] 10/6/2015 13:24

To the person who contacted me by ADVFN "private message": please use these bulletin boards instead of such messages to ask me about CGT. Sorry, but I'm simply not willing to do such stuff privately, partly because only one person benefits that way rather than potentially every reader of the board, partly because if I make a mistake, there's a better chance that someone will catch and correct it. (I'm posting this reply to both CGT boards, by the way, as I don't know which board they came from. And I'm deliberately not identifying the person concerned - I see no reason to 'name and shame' someone about ignoring a strong preference they probably didn't know I have!)

The answer to your question is basically that everything that happens inside an ISA is completely invisible to CGT. List all your trades outside the ISA (I'm assuming you don't have shares in any other tax shelters, such as SIPPs - if you do, take "outside the ISA" to mean "outside the ISA or any other tax shelter") and do your CGT calculations on them; don't even bother listing the trades inside the ISA. In particular, if you have shares in the same company both inside and outside the ISA, only list and perform calculations on the shares outside the ISA - ignore the ones inside it.

I say "basically" above because there are a few awkward cases:

* It is possible to transfer shares out of an ISA. If you do that, your ISA manager is supposed to tell you the value of the shares on the date of the transfer: you then treat them for CGT purposes as though you bought them at that value on the date of the transfer. (If your ISA manager doesn't tell you that information, ask them!)

* In rare circumstances, to do with shares obtained from some types of employee share scheme, it is possible to transfer shares into an ISA. I am not certain just what the CGT treatment is in that case - so if it applies, ask the scheme manager.

* There is also the recent change that someone whose spouse or civil partner dies gets an additional ISA allowance equal to the value of their ISAs on death. I've seen indications that in some circumstances, it's acceptable for the holdings in the deceased's ISAs to be transferred directly into ISAs belonging to their partner. Technically, that probably involves a transfer of the holdings from outside an ISA to inside one, as the general rule is that ISAs cease to be ISAs on the date of death... I'm afraid I don't know the CGT treatment in that case either - a question to ask when going through the admin of getting the extra ISA allowance, I suspect.

* Otherwise, all supposed 'transfers' into ISAs are not in fact transfers at all, but 'bed and ISA' packages of three transactions: a sale of the holding outside the ISA, a cash subscription to the ISA, and a repurchase of the holding inside the ISA (probably slightly reduced by the trading costs). Dealing with their CGT is simply a matter of applying the general rule: pay attention to the sale outside the ISA, ignore the repurchase inside the ISA (and ignore the cash ISA subscription - such subscriptions never have any CGT consequences).

Gengulphus

[topvest] 07/6/2015 13:27

So annual report out. They did, in my view, rather stupidly blow their 29 year dividend record last year - crazy imho - this year it's bounced back to 20p from 16p. It will take them another 30 years to get the record back again - what stupidity!

Anyway, results steady. Long term a safe share to have in your portfolio.

Overall, I'm not convinced by their comment "The reason the portfolio contains such high levels of cash and short duration assets is to ensure dry powder for deployment when values are better." Fair point indeed....but, there is no real evidence that they switched to equities in 2009 which was a great buying opportunity. Will they do it next time or are they just too cautious for their own good.

Looks like they are moving to a zero discount policy which should aid liquidity and increase the size of the trust. On balance, I think this is a good move.

Certainly happy to hold in my portfolio like Personal Assets as it's good to see what they are doing. I particularly like to look at their investment trust, zero dividend preference shares and fixed interest portfolio for insight into opportunities.

[steptoe57] 04/5/2015 09:06

Tarny I think you will find the gain/loss would have been accrued in the tax year you transferred the shares into your ISA, from that year on no further gain/losses can be attributed to CGT calculations

[tarny] 03/5/2015 23:02

Thanks for that much appreciated! BTW...it was a Bed-and-ISA

[gengulphus] 03/5/2015 12:30

Tarny,

Just to explain david77's answer a bit more:

* You almost certainly didn't transfer the shares into your ISA two years ago, but 'bed-and-ISA' them - that is, sell them outside the ISA, transfer the cash in as an ISA subscription, and then use the cash inside the ISA to buy the shares again. The reason I say that is simply that transferring shares into an ISA isn't allowed by the ISA regulations, except in some very limited circumstances to do with some employee share schemes (and the timescales you indicate don't fit those limited circumstances).

* Your broker may well have offered the bed-and-ISA as though it were a single transaction, but if so, that's just a package deal offered by the broker. As far as tax is concerned, it's the three separate transactions: sell outside ISA, ISA subscription, buy inside ISA.

* Purchases and sales outside an ISA (and also outside any other tax shelter) are subject to CGT - so the 'sell outside ISA' part of the bed-and-ISA will have matched purchases you made outside the ISA. That will have realised a gain or a loss at the time you did the bed-and-ISA, i.e. two years ago. (Or in some fairly unlikely circumstances, it could even have realised more than one gain and/or loss.)

* Purchases and sales inside an ISA (or inside another tax shelter) are exempt from CGT, which means that they basically don't feature at all in the CGT calculation: they don't get matched to each other or to any other purchases and sales, no gains or losses are calculated on them, etc, etc, etc. So the 'buy inside ISA' part of the bed-and-ISA and the fact that they've now gone into administration don't feature at all in your CGT calculations - you would probably like them to, but ISAs are completely exempt from CGT and that applies to both gains and losses.

The net result is that you certainly cannot claim the loss between the value of the shares when the bed-and-ISA was done and their value now - but you might be able to claim a loss between what you originally bought the shares for and their value when the bed-and-ISA was done (specifically, what the 'sell outside ISA' part of the bed-and-ISA sold them for), if that was actually a loss and you haven't already claimed it. If so, whether the extra loss back then actually saves you any CGT (and if so, which years it saves you CGT in) is worked out by the standard rules for offsetting losses against gains and carrying losses forward, starting in the year in which it was realised (so it isn't automatically usable in 2014/2015 - it might get carried forward partially or completely until then, but equally, it might not).

Equally, if the difference between the original purchase price and what the 'sell outside ISA' part of the bed-and-ISA sold them for was a gain, and you were supposed to tell the taxman about it but didn't because you didn't realise there was such a gain, you need to own up to the mistake.

Gengulphus

[tarny] 03/5/2015 07:45

Hi could someone please help....I have held shares in a company for around 10 years and transferred them into my ISA two years ago. They have now been suspended as its in Administration. Could I offset my CGT for 2014-2015 against this loss? TIA

[tarny] 03/5/2015 07:45

Hi could someone please help....I have held shares in a company for around 10 years and transferred them into my ISA two years ago. They have now been suspended as its in Administration. Could I offset my CGT for 2014-2015 against this loss? TIA

[sleveen] 01/5/2015 15:44

Thanks David.

I've tried a more complicated set of trades on both versions and each version produces exactly the same result.

[david77] 01/5/2015 11:31

I've updated my CGT prog - it's now at option 2 on www.stonebanks.co.uk
I have put the earlier version as option 3 just in case.

The earlier version does same day deals, then buys within 30 days of a sale, then does the rest.

The later version does everything in date order but still obeys the rules.

Both versions give similar results for my last year's list of deals and for sleveen's sample data at #845.

[david77] 27/4/2015 16:45

Interesting Sleveen - the earlier version gives the right result.

I've put the earlier version back on the website.

I will have a look at the prog.

[sleveen] 27/4/2015 16:02

Hi David

There seem to be an issue with your CGT calculator.

The transactions below are matched and therefore there should be no shares held after each transaction.

However your calculator states I have a 50k share holding remaining. It seems to be adding the 20k and 30k purchases together.

Please would you have a look. TIA.

CAZA
23/04/14, b, 50000, 10.29, 5150.95
26/04/14, s, 50000, 11.0251, 5506.60
18/09/14, b, 20000, 19.25, 3855.95
18/09/14, s, 20000, 20.81, 4156.05
18/12/14, b, 30000, 8.7, 2615.95
18/12/14, s, 30000, 8.17, 2445.05

[david77] 19/4/2015 20:58

TU - there are two free CGT calculators on line - option 2 on www.stonebanks.co.uk and www.CGTcalculator.com

[theuniversal] 19/4/2015 19:39

Thanks guys ;-)

[gengulphus] 19/4/2015 16:44

Im glad you have mentioned the 3 part of bed and isa which is what im trying to solve I've looked on the hmrc app under isa, shares and cgt it does not mentioned what you have said about bed and isa being in 3 parts....

That's because "bed and ISA" is basically just the name of a package deal offered by some brokers: you ask your broker to do it and (assuming your broker offers "bed and ISA") you get its three parts (the sale outside the ISA, the ISA subscription and the purchase inside the ISA) as an agreed-once package from the broker. The same sort of thing as happens if you book a package holiday: the whole thing is agreed once, but has multiple parts (the flights, the hotel accommodation, the food, maybe some excursions, etc).

The taxman won't in general have special rules for each part of such a deal: he'll just tax each part separately by the normal rules, which in the case of a bed-and-ISA are:

* Sale outside the ISA: CGT might be due from the investor, according to the normal CGT rules.

* Subscription to the ISA: No tax actually due, but the ISA provider will be required to report the subscription to HMRC.

* Purchase inside the ISA: Stamp duty normally due, though it might not be (e.g. if the shares bought are AIM shares). The stamp duty is paid directly to HMRC by the broker, but the broker will pass the cost on to the investor via the contract note.

So don't expect the taxman to have special rules about such package deals: he just taxes the separate parts normally. As another example, if your local supermarket has a "4 bottles for the price of 3" offer on beer, the taxman is still going to collect the excise duty on 4 bottles of beer: the fact that the supermarket is offering the 4 bottles for the price of 3 is simply a private offer the supermarket is making to its customers.

Likewise, a "bed and ISA" is simply a private offer the broker is making to its customers. Unlike the supermarket offer, it's not offering the goods (i.e. shares) for free: the extra that it is typically offering the brokers' customers is typically just that the purchase will happen very soon after the sale, so that there is unlikely to be much change in the share price between them. And some brokers offer another extra: they'll only want a single commission for the package deal, rather than two separate commissions, one for the sale and the other for the purchase.

But the taxman doesn't really care about those extras: as far as he is concerned, what has happened is three separate transactions: a sale outside an ISA, an ISA subscription and a purchase inside an ISA. Nothing more than that, nothing less.

Just too clarify those three parts as I understand it it would be much simpler to just put cash in the stock isa than bed and isa and worry about the tax man... then you can buy and sell with in the isa all you want..

It would be simpler, yes, but it wouldn't do the same thing: it would only do the ISA subscription and the purchase within the ISA, not the sale outside the ISA as well. Whether that matters depends on whether you want all parts of the package deal...

If you've actually got £15k of cash outside the ISA that's available for investment, you probably only want the ISA subscription and one or more purchases inside the ISA - which means that you might well not want the package deal. Whether you do depends on whether you want the gains or losses from the sale outside the ISA - you might want gains to use up your ISA allowance, or losses to offset gains in excess of the allowance - and on whether having to purchase the same share(s) inside the ISA as you sold outside it matters to you. If you do want the package deal, take the bed-and-ISA package; if you don't, don't: you can always put together the bits you do want yourself.

For example, I recently wanted to shift some shares of mine into my ISA. But I wanted the gains on those shares to be realised in the 2014/2015 tax year, and I'd already used my ISA allowance for that tax year, so the ISA subscription would have to happen in the 2015/2016 tax year. Furthermore, I wanted to reduce the holding overall - i.e. I wanted to sell quite a few more shares outside the ISA than I wanted to repurchase inside it. So I didn't try to do a bed-and-ISA: as separate transactions, I sold outside the ISA on Thursday April 2nd to raise enough cash for the new year's ISA subscription, subscribed to the ISA on Wednesday April 8th, and split that subscription between three purchases on Tuesday April 14th (later than I'd planned, as the broker was unusually slow about processing the ISA subscription). That cost me a bit more than a bed-and-ISA would have done, both because of the extra broker commissions and because the price of the original share moved about 1% against me during the delay - but I reckon that was a price worth paying for ending up where I wanted and not somewhere else...

As for the 3 part bed and isa lack of more detail info by hmrc on this is painful inadequate for PI's hence why im in here talking to you

1: is bed and isa exempt from being taxed while using the full £15,000 or

No. I've told you in both of my previous replies that the sale part of the bed-and-ISA package is taxed by CGT just like any other sale outside a tax shelter, and now I've told you that again in this reply. I won't tell you it again after this - there's simply no point keeping on telling you if you're not going to believe me.

2: out of £15000, £11100 is exempt using cgt allowance while the remaining is taxed even though it is going into a bed and isa. So rather pay the tax its better to put the remaining as cash from a bank account savings or cash isa transfere savings to cut down on fees and unnecessary tax claims

Closer, but still no. To deal with a minor point first, the ISA and CGT allowances this tax year are £15,240 and £11,100 respectively; last tax year they were £15,000 and £11,000. You're using a mixture of the two...

Much more important, the money you raise from the 'sell outside the ISA' part of the bed-and-ISA is the proceeds of the sale (minus any selling costs) but CGT pays attention to the gain. They're not the same!

As an example, suppose that in this tax year, you bed-and-ISA 1,000 shares and the sale part of that sells them at £15.25 each and pays your broker a £10 commission. It therefore neatly raises the £15,240 you can subscribe to the ISA (*). If the amount you originally paid for those 1,000 shares is £4,130 or more, you've realised a gain of £11,100 or less on them and so your CGT allowance will cover it. But if the amount you originally paid for them was less than £4,130, you've realised a gain of more than £11,100 and so some CGT will be due.

And also much more important than the minor muddling up of the two tax years, any other gains and losses you realise in this tax year will change that position, and you're not necessarily in control of whether you realise them: takeovers and occasionally some other major corporate actions can force you to realise gains and losses that you don't want to.

The upshot is that I cannot tell you how much the capital gain or loss will be from the sell part of a bed-and-ISA that puts £15,240 into your ISA: it could be any gain from £0 up to the full £15,240, or any loss at all, depending on what you originally paid for the shares (a gain of the full £15,240 is unlikely, but possible in at least a couple of circumstances). Nor can I tell you how much that gain can safely be without risking a CGT bill, because I don't know what other gains and losses you might have to realise this tax year.

(*) Things seldom work out this neatly in real life, of course! ;-)

Gengulphus

[largeronald] 19/4/2015 15:27

Theuniversal - for 2015/16 you are allowed to put £15,240 into your isa.

It's how you obtain that £15,240 that is the issue here - it doesn't matter that you are going to put it into an isa as far as CGT is concerned.

If you make more than £11,100 profit from the sale of shares, then the amount above £11,100 is subject to CGT.

If you find the £15,240 down the back of your sofa, then there are no CGT considerations.

I can't put it any simpler than that, I'm afraid.

[theuniversal] 19/4/2015 14:30

Thanks gengulphus Im glad you have mentioned the 3 part of bed and isa which is what im trying to solve I've looked on the hmrc app under isa, shares and cgt it does not mentioned what you have said about bed and isa being in 3 parts....Just too clarify those three parts as I understand it it would be much simpler to just put cash in the stock isa than bed and isa and worry about the tax man... then you can buy and sell with in the isa all you want..As for the 3 part bed and isa lack of more detail info by hmrc on this is painful inadequate for PI's hence why im in here talking to you 1: is bed and isa exempt from being taxed while using the full £15,000 or2: out of £15000, £11100 is exempt using cgt allowance while the remaining is taxed even though it is going into a bed and isa. So rather pay the tax its better to put the remaining as cash from a bank account savings or cash isa transfere savings to cut down on fees and unnecessary tax claimsSorry to prolong this point.. thanks for all your replies