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Capital Gains Tax
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higueron
Posts: 47 Forumite
when the power companies went private (Scottish Power) I was offered to buy shares which I did and chose dividend re investment I am sure that this was over 20 years ago I now have around 18k worth of shares the problem is I have no idea of how much I paid for them
in the first place any ideas as to what I should claim in the tax form
in the first place any ideas as to what I should claim in the tax form
0
Comments
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If you don't know how much you paid then you treat it as zero. The simple way to sell the shares without any risk of capital gains tax and any time spent digging through old records is to sell £9k now and £9k after 6 April 2018. As the gain cannot be more than £9k, they will be within your £11,300 annual capital gains allowances, assuming you have no other capital gains in either year.
If you are married you could also transfer the shares into joint names and sell them all now. Transfers between spouses are free of CGT, and if your spouse has no gains either, you have an £11,300 allowance each.
Are the shares electronically held? If so you should be able to ask the registrar for the transaction history, which will at least tell you how much you can claim in respect of reinvested dividends, even if they don't know how much you originally paid.
Normally you could use the historic share prices to work out how much was paid, but as Scottish Power was taken over a while ago I don't know of an easy or free way to get hold of those.0 -
It would appear that when Scottish Power floated in 1991 the shares were valued at £2.40, according to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8512572.stm#9 and https://www.share.com/web/pdf/guides/20050905Privatisationguide.pdf
Other more definitive sources may be available for those more inclined to spend more time looking!
However, this would only address the initial acquisition rather than subsequent dividend reinvestments, so still doesn't paint the full picture - do you have any documentation or access to broker records for any of the interim 26 years, especially the Iberdrola takeover in 2006?0 -
Hi
If you are married yo can transfer half to your wife and use both CGT allowances and dispose of them in the same year without incurring CGT
Jo0
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