Paper share certificates & Capital Gains implications

ConfusedCF

Hi,
I have recently found some old share certificates & having checked them, the value looks to be worth over £25k. I am about to set up a Stocks & Shares ISA & trading account with Web, and I wondered the following:
If I want to sell the shares, what is the best process to do that to avoid capital gains? Or do shares have to be purchased in the first place through an ISA to avoid any capital gains tax?
Not experienced in this area at all so apologies if this is a stupid question!
Thanks

eskbanker

If the shares aren't already within a tax wrapper such as an ISA or SIPP, then selling them brings CGT into scope - it may not be payable if the chargeable gains don't exceed your annual CGT threshold (currently £12,300), but do you have accurate records of purchase prices and any associated acquisition costs in order to calculate the gains?  You could stagger the sales across multiple tax years to minimise any impact....

ConfusedCF

@eskbanker thank you for your response, that makes sense.
I do have the original purchase paperwork so would be able to work out the gains....I think I was trying to work out if I transferred the shares from paper to online, then sold them from there, whether that would make any difference. But I'm assuming you can't transfer them straight into the ISA, they would have to go into the trading/dealing account first, and then be sold and re-bought through the ISA (bed & ISA)?
So if I understand correctly, if the gains exceed the £12,300 annual CGT threshold, the only way to avoid the CGT is to either have purchased shares through a Stocks & Shares ISA in the first place, or to stagger the sales, as you said, over multiple years?
Apologies if this is all rather obvious, I am new to this 

eskbanker

ConfusedCF said:

I think I was trying to work out if I transferred the shares from paper to online, then sold them from there, whether that would make any difference.

No, any CGT liability is triggered on sale, so changing between certificates and online holding doesn't affect that.

ConfusedCF said:

But I'm assuming you can't transfer them straight into the ISA, they would have to go into the trading/dealing account first, and then be sold and re-bought through the ISA (bed & ISA)?

You can't transfer shares into an ISA directly (other than some exceptions that aren't relevant here, like employer sharesave schemes) so have to go via cash.  You can sell in certificated form rather than going via a trading account - there's nothing special about bed & ISA, it's just an administrative convenience to package up a sale and repurchase together.

ConfusedCF said:

So if I understand correctly, if the gains exceed the £12,300 annual CGT threshold, the only way to avoid the CGT is to either have purchased shares through a Stocks & Shares ISA in the first place, or to stagger the sales, as you said, over multiple years?

Yes, or a third option would be to gift some to a spouse or civil partner: https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/gifts

Or a nuclear fourth option would be to hold them until their price drops enough to reduce your gain below the CGT threshold

ConfusedCF

@eskbanker Thank you so much, that has really helped. Thank you!