Gifting wife shares from a US based stock account

LionKing

Hi,

Looking for help please.

I have £70k in shares saved up via an employee share purchase scheme. Cost me £35k so have thankfully made £35k gain. The money is in a Fidelity account in US which i now require for house.

I would like to leverage my wifes CGT allowance however not sure how best to do. I cannot change the stock account to a joint account.

How do i gift my wife shares from a US based stock account?
Do i need to fill out any specific forms and submit with tax return? Can i get this all done before end of tax year?

Any guidance much appreciated.



Thanks

jimmo

For US share schemes the usual answer on here is that you will not actually own the shares until they are vested and you have paid the Income Tax liability. Another poster, EdSwippet, explained this a lot better than I could in this thread.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5739814

If that is the case for you and you want to cash the shares in straight away there is no point in gifting some to your wife because there will be no Capital Gains Tax.

EdSwippet

LionKing wrote: »

How do i gift my wife shares from a US based stock account?

Assuming you hold actual stocks here, and not anything exotic like unvested options or RSUs, then I don't think the stuff quoted by jimmo upthread is going to apply.

If your US brokerage will not let you add your wife as a joint account holder, the only way round this that occurs to me at the moment is for you to open a joint account at a UK broker and then transfer the holdings 'in specie' from your US broker into that UK account. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be a quick process -- it may well include several pieces of 'wet signature' paperwork crossing the Atlantic -- and so your chances of getting it done in the next two weeks seem pretty slender to me.

Maybe you can pull a rabbit out of the hat, though. Or maybe someone else will come along with a better idea than this. As far as I know you can't transfer shares between spouses without actually transferring them in some semi-physical way, but perhaps there is and I simply don't know the details.

LionKing

Great thanks. I have a UK brokerage account with Hargreaves L so will switch that to a joint account with my wife. I called Fidelity in US and they said all i need to do is fill in a form, fax it back and they will execute the transfer. I did not ask how long the transfer would take given your comments its not likely to be swift i will phone and checkin with them.