Personal Tax and Capital Gains Allowances

Classic_Filly

Good afternoon.
I'm retired but living off my savings and not drawing a pension atm. For the tax year 2023-24 I will have to pay about £900 in capital gains tax as a result of profits on a shares investment. By the end of this tax year I will have earned about £4500 in savings interest. There's no other income.
I won't have used all my combined personal allowance (£12570) and savings allowance (£1000), so my questions is: can the unused personal allowance of approx. £9000 be used to top-up the capital gains allowance, i.e. £6000 capital gains allowance and £9000 of unused personal allowance, giving me a capital gain allowance of £15000 which would nearly cover the capital gain and therefore very little capital gains tax to pay?
Thank you.

eskbanker

No, the £12,570 personal tax allowance relates only to income tax liabilities, not CGT ones.

dales1

Yes it does seem harsh that people on low incomes cannot use their personal tax allowance to offset modest capital gains.

But if you haven't yet sold this shares investment, you might delay the sale of a portion into next tax year, and use a new £3,000 annual CGT allowance, to pay less tax.

colalba

It isn't as good as being able to transfer allowances but at least with your small income, basic rate or in your case no  income tax payable , the CGT rate is 10%. For higher rate income tax payers the CGT is 20%.

As Dales1 says if you haven't already sold, delay part of the sale till after 6th April 2024