Transfer stock from USA brokerage account to UK brokerage account

freebo_2

I'm having a nightmare with this so any help greatly appreciated!

I have some stock in Morgan Stanley from when I worked for a US company.

I want to transfer the stock to a UK account, so I can eventually gift it to my wife for Capital Gains allowance sharing, I'm lead to believe once its in a UK account in my name the rest will be easy. But...I'm trying to get it done before the end of the Tax-Year as Mr Hunt is slashing the CGT allowance next year.

I set up an account in my name with Hargreaves Landsdown but when I attempted the transfer it failed because HL use "Crest" and MS don't, it took weeks to find this out because MS use faxes and secure messages and I need to phone them every time there's an issue. Apparently the UK firm needs to accept "DCT" transfers???

Has anyone navigated this minefield and is able to offer advice, please, before I lose what little sanity I have left!!

GeoffTF

This issue has been raised before:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5813742/transferring-shares-from-us-to-uk

You may be able to transfer it to an iWeb account. I suggest you ring them. You can also try Interactive Investor.

asdf1

freebo_2 said:

I'm having a nightmare with this so any help greatly appreciated!

I have some stock in Morgan Stanley from when I worked for a US company.

I want to transfer the stock to a UK account, so I can eventually gift it to my wife for Capital Gains allowance sharing, I'm lead to believe once its in a UK account in my name the rest will be easy. But...I'm trying to get it done before the end of the Tax-Year as Mr Hunt is slashing the CGT allowance next year.

I set up an account in my name with Hargreaves Landsdown but when I attempted the transfer it failed because HL use "Crest" and MS don't, it took weeks to find this out because MS use faxes and secure messages and I need to phone them every time there's an issue. Apparently the UK firm needs to accept "DCT" transfers???

Has anyone navigated this minefield and is able to offer advice, please, before I lose what little sanity I have left!!

I am in the same situation. Did you find any solution? Please share it. Thanks in advance

sausage_time

Previously I have opened a joint account with my employer nominated US broker (Schwab in this case) and used that to double the CGT allowance.   This year we sold some to use up £6k of gain, and I transferred the cash to Trading 212 and re-purchased the shares in an ISA (in just one of our names obviously).    Some food for thought....

felix-b

I am in exactly the same situation. I have a plan just to sell some shares with Morgan Stanley, and on the same day purchase the same number of shares in my HL Fund&Share account. Due to the 'same day' share matching rules, the gain is not crystallised, and I can then easily transfer the shares (and uncrystallised gain) to my wife in order to count against her CGT allowance. So it is not necessary to go through the complexity of actually transferring the shares. Is there any reason that this would not be acceptable?

poseidon1

felix-b said:

I am in exactly the same situation. I have a plan just to sell some shares with Morgan Stanley, and on the same day purchase the same number of shares in my HL Fund&Share account. Due to the 'same day' share matching rules, the gain is not crystallised, and I can then easily transfer the shares (and uncrystallised gain) to my wife in order to count against her CGT allowance. So it is not necessary to go through the complexity of actually transferring the shares. Is there any reason that this would not be acceptable?

For the benefit of the original OP,  see link below to the 'same day rules' mentioned by felix-b.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg51560

Seems to me for the price of dealing costs  and currency exchange differences each side of the pond, this could be viewed as a quick and easy way to achieve the objective, as long as you have the available cash in the UK to complete the repurchase . 

For completeness , bear in mind that for CGT purposes you would need to make a manual  change to the UK purchase price in your UK account, back to the original book cost of the shares at the historical spot exchange rate, to ensure both you and spouse have the correct historical costs going forward if your UK account can only repurchase the LSE quoted shares.

As for as I am I aware, Interactive Investors are one of the few major platforms that permit investors to hold dollar denominated shareholdings in specie, ie allow you to buy  US shares in dollars and retain the dollar denominated shareholdings together with any future dollar dividends thereon, without automatically converting to sterling.
Useful in this case since Morgan Stanley has a dual NYSE/LSE quote under tickers MS and OQYU respectively. I would be inclined to repurchase the shares under the MS ticker so that there is no doubt exactly the same shares are being reacquired, and easier to reinstate the original dollar book cost.

sausage_time

poseidon1 said:

felix-b said:

I am in exactly the same situation. I have a plan just to sell some shares with Morgan Stanley, and on the same day purchase the same number of shares in my HL Fund&Share account. Due to the 'same day' share matching rules, the gain is not crystallised, and I can then easily transfer the shares (and uncrystallised gain) to my wife in order to count against her CGT allowance. So it is not necessary to go through the complexity of actually transferring the shares. Is there any reason that this would not be acceptable?

For the benefit of the original OP,  see link below to the 'same day rules' mentioned by felix-b.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg51560

Seems to me for the price of dealing costs  and currency exchange differences each side of the pond, this could be viewed as a quick and easy way to achieve the objective, as long as you have the available cash in the UK to complete the repurchase . 

...

My emphasis.  Won't one have 30 days in which to buy back?  Should allow plenty day to move the funds back, but any interim share movement may of course give rise to a gain/loss.