Stocks & Shares ISA, How long before I can sell after a transfer/buy back?

Dutton10

All

I work for a company where we can buy shares through two schemes, in this instance i want to talk about the shares i have bought in a Sharesave (SAYE).

I have transferred shares into a sharestore when they have come to fruition and let them build up.

now my issue is that with CGT being lowered year on year, i am looking at selling these so that i can effectively buy them back in a S&S Isa.

my question is... If i do buy the shares back under a S&S ISA, is there a set amount of time you need to keep them before being allowed to sell them? or can you do it instantly?


Now i know that you can transfer shares that have ended within 90 days without penalties (which i will most likely be doing in the future) but for the time being it seems i need to withdraw the other shares first as these have the biggest gain and stay within the ISA allowance 

Thanks for taking the time to read, much appreciated

eskbanker

Dutton10 said:

my question is... If i do buy the shares back under a S&S ISA, is there a set amount of time you need to keep them before being allowed to sell them? or can you do it instantly?

No time limits, once they're in the ISA you can do what you want with them whenever you wish....

Tonski

I am in a similar position to yourself Dutton10. I have shares from two company sharesave schemes that are not in an ISA. I've already sold some of them last year and will sell some before the end of the tax year and the rest next year. I'm intrigued though why you would buy the same stock at what i'm guessing will be an elevated price from your sharesave? You must really believe in your company to grow long term. Is it not better to take the profit from that scheme and buy some more diverse range stocks for your S&S ISA to reduce your risk?  

Steve_666_

if you sell the shares in the store and transfer the money into a S&S ISA, you have banked the capital gains and will need to pay any tax liability. 

What you do in an ISA stays in an ISA.

Dutton10

Tonski said:

I am in a similar position to yourself Dutton10. I have shares from two company sharesave schemes that are not in an ISA. I've already sold some of them last year and will sell some before the end of the tax year and the rest next year. I'm intrigued though why you would buy the same stock at what i'm guessing will be an elevated price from your sharesave? You must really believe in your company to grow long term. Is it not better to take the profit from that scheme and buy some more diverse range stocks for your S&S ISA to reduce your risk?  

Yeah I'm open to perhaps put it into a global tracker but I'm new at all this so looking at different options. I know I'd be buying shares at an elevated price but I would also be selling them at the elevated price and therefore I would still effectively have the same shares (minus transactions fees etc) if that makes sense?

Dutton10

Steve_666_ said:

if you sell the shares in the store and transfer the money into a S&S ISA, you have banked the capital gains and will need to pay any tax liability. 

What you do in an ISA stays in an ISA.

Yeah so that's why I'm thinking I need to sell alot before April as the CGT goes from 12k to 6k and then 3k the following year, so needing to make the most of this years allowance.

 Then once in my ISA, for example say 4 weeks time I wanted to sell shares that have a gain of 10k then I won't need to pay any CGT, where as if I leave them in my works sharestore and sell them I would need to pay tax on 4k 

Steve_666_

Dutton10 said:

Steve_666_ said:

if you sell the shares in the store and transfer the money into a S&S ISA, you have banked the capital gains and will need to pay any tax liability. 

What you do in an ISA stays in an ISA.

Yeah so that's why I'm thinking I need to sell alot before April as the CGT goes from 12k to 6k and then 3k the following year, so needing to make the most of this years allowance.

 Then once in my ISA, for example say 4 weeks time I wanted to sell shares that have a gain of 10k then I won't need to pay any CGT, where as if I leave them in my works sharestore and sell them I would need to pay tax on 4k 

If you can transfer the shares into an ISA under the 90 day rule, then once in you can sell these any time. Note that these count towards your annual ISA allowance of 20K.
If you have cashed them in the store and used some or all of you CGT allowance, then transfer the cash to the ISA, why would you buy them back in the expectation of selling them 4 weeks later, unless you are expecting a surge in the price?
Bed and ISA is a term, but in effect it is sell the shares, pay any CGT liability, add cash to a S&S ISA, and buy shares, can be the same shares can be anything else eligble. Transfer under the 90 day rule avoids the CGT liability, else use your CGT allowance wisely.

Steve_666_

What I think Tonski was hinting at is this. It is one of those common sense "wise" saying, don't invest your savings with your employer. For the obvious reason, if the employer goes bust, you don't only lose your source of income, you also lose your reserve/savings, a double whammy.
However with SAYE schemes and CGT, you do have to comprise this and sell the shares when the tax liability is at its lowest.

Dutton10

Steve_666_ said:

Dutton10 said:

Steve_666_ said:

if you sell the shares in the store and transfer the money into a S&S ISA, you have banked the capital gains and will need to pay any tax liability. 

What you do in an ISA stays in an ISA.

Yeah so that's why I'm thinking I need to sell alot before April as the CGT goes from 12k to 6k and then 3k the following year, so needing to make the most of this years allowance.

 Then once in my ISA, for example say 4 weeks time I wanted to sell shares that have a gain of 10k then I won't need to pay any CGT, where as if I leave them in my works sharestore and sell them I would need to pay tax on 4k 

If you can transfer the shares into an ISA under the 90 day rule, then once in you can sell these any time. Note that these count towards your annual ISA allowance of 20K.
If you have cashed them in the store and used some or all of you CGT allowance, then transfer the cash to the ISA, why would you buy them back in the expectation of selling them 4 weeks later, unless you are expecting a surge in the price?
Bed and ISA is a term, but in effect it is sell the shares, pay any CGT liability, add cash to a S&S ISA, and buy shares, can be the same shares can be anything else eligble. Transfer under the 90 day rule avoids the CGT liability, else use your CGT allowance wisely.

Unfortunately i have shares that matured over 5 years ago (which i saved for 5 years, so have the biggest gain) so the 90 day rule wont apply until next year or the one after once i clear my feet.
The 4 weeks was just an example, i guess the part missing from this is i basically allowed a family member to buy shares to use as a retirement kind of fund without knowing the implications especially around CGT so it may be that he may like part of his shares cashed etc etc.

Bed and ISA, thanks for that info i kind of guessed thats what needs to be done, do you need to declare or do anything to avoid the liability or do you just need to prove it if asked about it. im not entirely sure how that works yet as i havent opened a S&S ISA. 

Steve_666_

For CGT then you specify each gain on the self assessment tax return, paper or online. If you don't normally have to do this, I'm not sure, the govt web site is going around in circles for me

https://www.gov.uk/report-and-pay-your-capital-gains-tax/if-you-have-other-capital-gains-to-report

In terms of the shares, you can part sell each year, issue we all have with SAYE is that Hunt is raiding capital gains over the next 2 years, mine are going  into an ISA next tax year

MoneySavingGerbil

Dutton10 said:

Unfortunately i have shares that matured over 5 years ago (which i saved for 5 years, so have the biggest gain) so the 90 day rule wont apply until next year or the one after once i clear my feet.

You mentioned "shares with the biggest gain", but if these are all shares of the same company (your employer) then the Inland Revenue won't differentiate. Have a read up on Section 104 holdings. Essentially if you acquired the shares in one company at different times and even via different mechanism e.g. shares from your employer that you contributed to and shares you were given by your employer as remuneration than as far as CGT in the UK is concerned then they're all one homogenous pot of shares that have an "average price" that you need to keep track of yourself. It's this average price that you need to use toi work out the gain when you sell some shares.

Just thought I'd mention it as some employee share schemes seem to muddy the waters by showing you gain of one tranche of shares vs another, but as far as CGT is concerned it's irrelevant.