Sharesave shares

Money_Bags1447

Hi
I have been retired for over 10 years but during my working lifetime I have accumulated a lot of shares with the company I was employed with. The shares were gained through employee share save (5year) schemes and annual bonuses. Total value is £200K. Do I need to declare this to HMRC ? What about capital gains or any other taxes? Shares are held in a share store.
PS I've already spoke with the Share store people but the just say speak to a financial advisor.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Mark_d

I don't believe you need to declare the value of your shareholding to HMRC but you would need to inform them if there is a taxable gain (capital gains tax) or if your dividend income would incur tax liabilities

george4064

Which company are the shares you hold?

Not sure how much their value compares to your overall liquid assets, but chances are the sensible thing for you to do is sell them and re-invest in something a bit more diversified.

Zoe02

george4064 said:

Which company are the shares you hold?

Not sure how much their value compares to your overall liquid assets, but chances are the sensible thing for you to do is sell them and re-invest in something a bit more diversified.

Great advice, I had 30k worth of shares with M&S around 2014. Wish i had sold and diversified as over time went so low and now just recovering. 

Beddie

You pay tax on dividends, if over your annual allowance. You will have to pay CGT when you sell, again if over allowances, and it can be a very complicated calculation. Might be worth speaking to an accountant about that. 

Keep_pedalling

Holding £200k in a single company is not a great idea you could lose the lot overnight. You have missed out on capitalising on previous years CG allowances which has halved this financial year and will halve again in April. 

What company is this?

Money_Bags1447

Hi, thanks for the replies. The shares are Diageo, my employer for 30+ years (now I'm long retired) which were acquired through SIPs (share save schemes) annual bonus shares based on profit etc. I have spoken with financial advisors and unless they know the share price at purchase then capital gains cannot be calculated. These shares were accrued over a 25 year period so share price will vary. I have tried to find out share prices at that time but getting no where.

Since I feel I never really purchased the shares, then would I be due to pay any capital gains? 

I'm so fed up I feel like selling up and not declaring anything and hope I hear nothing ;-)

Keep_pedalling

Money_Bags1447 said:

Hi, thanks for the replies. The shares are Diageo, my employer for 30+ years (now I'm long retired) which were acquired through SIPs (share save schemes) annual bonus shares based on profit etc. I have spoken with financial advisors and unless they know the share price at purchase then capital gains cannot be calculated. These shares were accrued over a 25 year period so share price will vary. I have tried to find out share prices at that time but getting no where.

Since I feel I never really purchased the shares, then would I be due to pay any capital gains? 

I'm so fed up I feel like selling up and not declaring anything and hope I hear nothing ;-)

Do not do that unless you want to risk a criminal record and a hefty fine. All of the shares you hold will be carrying substantial gains (the early ones will have gone up 6 fold since you obtained them), so selling the lot will give you a considerable CGT liability. Had these been BT or Lloyds Bank shares you could do this as there would be no gains to declare.

Do you have details on the dates they were vested to you? Historic share prices are not difficult to obtain. 

AndyT678

Money_Bags1447 said:

Hi, thanks for the replies. The shares are Diageo, my employer for 30+ years (now I'm long retired) which were acquired through SIPs (share save schemes) annual bonus shares based on profit etc. I have spoken with financial advisors and unless they know the share price at purchase then capital gains cannot be calculated. These shares were accrued over a 25 year period so share price will vary. I have tried to find out share prices at that time but getting no where.

Having spent 20 years accumulating shares in various schemes with my employer I have some sympathy but record keeping is vital here.

• You need a complete list of transactions showing exactly what you bought (or were "awarded") and when that happened.
• Yahoo finance will tell you the price of a Diageo share on any given day over the last 30+ years. Take the day low to maximise your gain, I don't see how HMRC could object to that.
• Calculate the weighted average cost of your total holding. If there were any disposals (i.e. you sold or transferred some shares), you will need to adjust for that.

Since I feel I never really purchased the shares, then would I be due to pay any capital gains?

You definitely did purchase them if they were share saves. Even bonuses paid as shares count as taxable income and are subject to CGT.

I'm so fed up I feel like selling up and not declaring anything and hope I hear nothing ;-)

Given Diageo's share trajectory over the last 30 years that's probably fraud if you do it in one big lump.

Money_Bags1447

Keep & Andy, thanks for your replies.  I going to look up historic share prices over last 25 years, average my holding over this period to calculate cgt. Hopefully this will keep hmrc happy and I can spend what's left.