Claiming CGT loss, self-assessment question

mark7144

I sold shares earlier this year at a loss of around £20,000. I would like to declare the loss to HRMC for tax relief. I have a couple of questions:

1) On the page where I enter the loss from the share disposal, which code should I choose for the following question:

"If you are making any claims or elections, select the relevant code:
[GHO, NVC, ROR, MUL, OTH]

I'm currently choosing OTH (Other Claim) as I'm not sure.

2) Can I use this declared loss against my PAYE income and thus get a sizable tax refund? Or does this only work against future CGT gains?

Hope you can help, thanks.

Keep_pedalling

Your losses can only be claimed against capital gains. If you have not had any gains to claim it against you can simply write to HMRC to register the losses to be used against future gains.

https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/losses

mark7144

Thanks but I'm actually doing self-assessment anyway which is why I'm asking for help in this respect. I'm not allowed to report it by writing to them.

Any help on identifying the correct code to use would be greatly appreciated.

00ec25

1. Have you read the notes that go with the return? The codes are explained therein:
GOH - gift holdover relief - irrelevant you sold the shares, you did not gift them
NVC - negligible value claim - if you had one of those you would know about it
ROR - roll over relief - irrelevant applies to specific assets
MUL - more than one code applies - it doesn't!
OTH - none of the above so, by a process of elimination, ...

2. if the shares sold were those in a "qualifying trading company" you would presumably already know that as it is a relatively specialist field. If they were not then you cannot offset capital losses against income tax.

mark7144

Thanks. I knew what the abbreviations were but I still didn't feel confident about it.

You are right that OTH is the correct one to use. I just spoke to HRMC about this as you posted. Thank you.