CGT on sale of late mother's shares. Better to sell through the estate or me personally?

epsilon4900

I am the executor of my late Mum's estate. She had a small number of shares which I have left till the end of the admin process to do anything with. I now want to sell them. They are worth a couple of hundred pounds. My question really is can I sell them through the estate and benefit from any CGT allowance therein OR is it better to transfer them directly into my name and then sell them and benefit from my own CGT allowance? In either case I can't see there would be any CGT to pay anyway so it's just a question of which is a better process if either is? I hope this makes sense!

[Deleted User]

Why not just wait until probate / estate finalised. 

You would then inherit the shares with your base cost  being the value at that time and minimise the gain further. 

Notepad_Phil

epsilon4900 said:

I am the executor of my late Mum's estate. She had a small number of shares which I have left till the end of the admin process to do anything with. I now want to sell them. They are worth a couple of hundred pounds. My question really is can I sell them through the estate and benefit from any CGT allowance therein OR is it better to transfer them directly into my name and then sell them and benefit from my own CGT allowance? In either case I can't see there would be any CGT to pay anyway so it's just a question of which is a better process if either is? I hope this makes sense!

It will probably be easier for you to do once they have been transferred across but there is nothing to stop you from doing it before, but take a look at https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/trusts-and-estates/bereavement-tax-issues-death/tax-income-and-gains-after-death for information such as the annual exemption amounts for a Personal Representative of an estate.

[Deleted User] said:

Why not just wait until probate / estate finalised. 

You would then inherit the shares with your base cost  being the value at that time and minimise the gain further. 

Are you sure about that, I thought that the base cost was always the value at date of death.

[Deleted User]

Notepad_Phil said:

epsilon4900 said:

I am the executor of my late Mum's estate. She had a small number of shares which I have left till the end of the admin process to do anything with. I now want to sell them. They are worth a couple of hundred pounds. My question really is can I sell them through the estate and benefit from any CGT allowance therein OR is it better to transfer them directly into my name and then sell them and benefit from my own CGT allowance? In either case I can't see there would be any CGT to pay anyway so it's just a question of which is a better process if either is? I hope this makes sense!

It will probably be easier for you to do once they have been transferred across but there is nothing to stop you from doing it before, but take a look at https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/trusts-and-estates/bereavement-tax-issues-death/tax-income-and-gains-after-death for information such as the annual exemption amounts for a Personal Representative of an estate.

[Deleted User] said:

Why not just wait until probate / estate finalised. 

You would then inherit the shares with your base cost  being the value at that time and minimise the gain further. 

Are you sure about that, I thought that the base cost was always the value at date of death.

Yes - that’s what I meant. When the estate is finalised the base cost will be the value at the time of death as established at probate. 

epsilon4900

Thanks. Probate was done and dusted some years ago. I understand that the estate does not now have any CGT allowance so it does make sense to put them into my name and then sell them and use my own CGT allowance. I have no other assets to realize this tax year which could have a CGT implication and the sale would be a matter of3 to 4 hundred pounds.

Bookworm105

epsilon4900 said:

Thanks. Probate was done and dusted some years ago. I understand that the estate does not now have any CGT allowance 

it would have helped if you'd said that to start with 
Selling in your own name is the only option to be tax efficient as the estate does indeed now have no CGT allowance 

epsilon4900

Bookworm105 said:

epsilon4900 said:

Thanks. Probate was done and dusted some years ago. I understand that the estate does not now have any CGT allowance 

it would have helped if you'd said that to start with 
Selling in your own name is the only option to be tax efficient as the estate does indeed now have no CGT allowance 

Thanks. It didn't occur to me to mention when probate was done but I can see it would or could have been useful to state.