Share Dealing Records for CGT Purposes

crafty_Blue

I have a substantial CGT liability y/e 07, even after setting off everything possible. However, I realise that my share dealings in the past 7 yrs have been less than spectacular! In order to identify these losses, I presume I need to identify when, and for how much these share were purchased [they're now worth the proverbial SWA]. Because my trading spans 3 separate trading organizations [Hemscott, DLJ, Waterhouse], the latter being the only one to have data -albeit only 5 yrs old, I was wondering if there is any way I can demostrate proof of purchase to the IR ?

Chrismaths

I'm presuming you didn't keep the contract notes? Tough one. The only people who would keep that data would be you and the broker - it would be an impossible task to identify the trades any other way. To claim the loss on your tax return, you ought to have documentary evidence of the purchase price. That's not to say HMRC would necessarily check it, but if they did you would be up the swanny. IIRC firms have to keep records of trades for 7 years (might be 6) - so hemscott & DLJ really ought to have the info, it just might be difficult and/or expensive to access. Given the sums I'm assuming are involved, the two ways I can think of going about it are a) offering to pay the costs of recovering the info, or b) speaking to their compliance departments and suggesting that they ought to be able to get hold of the info according to FSA rules (if my memory of the rules above is correct). Good luck!

On the issue of CGT, have you heard of an EIS (Enterprise investment scheme)? You can use them to defer your capital gains tax liability, and you get 20% income tax relief up to £200,000 (400,000 if you haven't used one in the last year). Let me know if you want more info.

crafty_Blue

Thanks for that. I had a hunch that the previous brokers must have sum 'repsonsibility' to provide data - I'll follow that one up asap. Re. EIS, I'll look into that, too.

Chrismaths

Actually, I've just looked it up, and it's actually only 3 years for execution of client orders - FSA COB rules.

So the compliance route won't help.