Shared Account CGT on death of one spouse

Ciprico

Say a general shared account had £200k, £100k being capital gains and £100k in equity, and one half died, so the entire holding transfers to survivor

I understand if the whole lot was old, the deceased's CGT is wiped (becomes IHT liable, which is not payable inter-spouse)

So in that case the survivor only has their own £50k CGT liability

Can the survivor pro-rata the sale of stock to acheive £13k of CG over 4 years...?

Can the survivor sell the proportion of holding not liable for CGT, ie the deceased's 50k of stock and 50k of gain... and not pay CGT.

What is the best way to extract money in this scenario avoiding CGT...

Any suggestions gratefully received....

  

Jeremy535897

Each spouse would have been treated as owning half of every holding, for share pooling calculations. The death of the first spouse causes the surviving spouse to acquire half of every holding at the date of death for its market value at that time. To simplify, if there was just one holding of 10,000 shares with a base cost of £100,000 in say 2010 and a current market value of £200,000, following the first death the survivor holds 5,000 shares with a base cost of £50,000 in 2010 and 5,000 shares with a base cost of £100,000 in 2022. These are pooled, and the acquisition cost of each share is therefore £15. There are certain exceptions, covered in https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shares-and-capital-gains-tax-hs284-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs284-shares-and-capital-gains-tax-2019 (which may well be updated tomorrow).

Ciprico

Many Thanks - that is a very clear explanation.