Let Stephenson Smart help reduce your capital gains tax bill.
Capital Gains Tax was introduced in 1965 and is a tax on the gain or profit you make when you sell, give away or otherwise dispose of something.
In most cases, it’s best to employ an accountant to advise you – and this is where we come in.
The most common scenarios are the sale of assets. Other events can also trigger capital gains tax like gifting an asset, selling assets gifted to you, a beneficiary becoming absolutely entitled to trust property, gains made by personal representatives of an estate in administration and in some instances, divorce and separation.
We can advise you whether your disposal will be subject to capital gains tax as some assets are outside the charge to capital gains tax.
As with all tax planning it is beneficial to plan ahead and our specialist team can provide you with capital gains tax advice to calculate, minimize, defer or even wipe out a potential charge to capital gains tax.
We seek to get to know you well so we can use that knowledge to make capital gain tax planning part of our on-going service to you. If we do not know your circumstances, the areas we would look at with you are:
Allowable Expenses
The amount of taxable gain can be reduced by other allowable expense in addition to the acquisition cost or deemed market value of the asset.
Annual Allowance
You have an annual tax-free allowance for Capital Gains Tax known as the ‘Annual Exempt Amount’.
We can assist you to maximise this exemption by considering:
- How many annual exemptions are available in your household, whether joint ownership would result in a reduced taxable gain and if you could benefit from an exempt transfer
- How the timing of your disposal will affect the taxable gain
- The interaction of your annual exemption with any capital losses brought forward
Rates of Capital Gains Tax
The capital gains tax rate you pay tax at will depend on whether you are:
- An individual, the rate is then dependent on the total amount of taxable income and gains during the year of disposal. It may therefore be possible to consider altering your remuneration during the year of disposal to reduce the amount of capital gains tax payable
- Trustees and personal representatives pay at one rate regardless of the level of trust income
Capital Gains Tax Reliefs
Reliefs are available to reduce and defer a chargeable gain. We would consider the requirements of the reliefs and whether you are able to claim them or if you could make any changes to your position in order to benefit from the reliefs.
A relief we advise on often is entrepreneur’s relief, which reduces the rate of Capital Gains Tax payable for clients who run their own businesses.
Capital Gain Tax on property is a concern to most people. Relief is usually available when you sell your own home, but we can also use this relief to cover the sale of part of your garden as a building plot, when you have more than one home or have rented part or all of your home.
We are also able to help you defer the crystallisation of a gain when you incorporate your business or dispose and reinvest in business assets or invest in enterprise investment schemes.
If we can help you with your Capital Gains Tax please get in touch.
