CGT rules on foreign shares - which FX rate to use

itwasntme001

For the current tax year I have sold some of my US tech shares and want to get confirmation what FX rate to use when I calculate the capital gains for self assessment 20/21.  The shares I bought were settled in USD a few years back and they settled in USD when I sold them.  So there was no conversion taking place when buying/selling.  The only conversion I did was just prior to buying the shares originally when I converted GBP cash into USD cash to be used to buy the US tech names.  The USD cash proceeds following the sale were used to buy other USD shares.

For SA reporting, I know in USD terms what the gains are but how do I exactly convert this back to GBP?

- Do I use the exchange rate I used when I converted GBP to USD for both the buy and sell of the stocks?

- Do I use the exchange rate at the time of the sale for both the buy and sell, even though that exchange rate was never used anywhere for any conversion?

- Do I use the exchange rate I used when I converted GBP to USD for the buy and the exchange rate at the time of the sale for the sell even though the latter exchange was never used anywhere for any conversion?

It would be good to know so I know how much of the CGT tax free threshold I have used this year so I can plan to use up the remainder before April 2021.

ohit

Use the FX rates at the point of purchase and then sale of the securities.
HMRC publish tables you can use : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exchange-rates-for-customs-and-vat-yearly
If you later convert cash back from USD to GBP and then be sure to calcuate the profit or loss from that as well.

itwasntme001

Thanks.  On the FX rate used for purchase, should it be the FX rate on the day of purchase of the shares or the FX rate used for exchanging the GBP cash to USD?  The latter was done weeks before the share purchase.

AnotherJoe

Its the FX rates when you buy and when you sell.  Your previous FX dealings arent relevant.