Selling shares, tax implications and Equiniti

Blackavar

Hi. I have a small amount of shares (around 5K) in various companies including M&S and just want to realise the money. I paid Equiniti to obtain a couple of lost certificates. I completed Crest forms and they are now in a share account with IWeb, the platform for my S&S ISA.

My questions are:

Could I have moved these straight into my ISA to avoid potential tax? Too late now anyway.

When I sell these shares from my share account what tax do I pay and how is it collected (I am retired with only state pension income).

Since initiating the registration of the M&S shares with IWeb, I’ve received a fairly stern letter from M&S saying that as I had not been in contact with them for several years my shares would be sold and monies given to good causes unless I contact Equiniti to discuss. I just want to sell them with as little overhead as possible. 

Any advice gratefully received.

leosayer

You can only pay cash into an ISA - you can't transfer shares. So you'll need to sell them first.

Capital gains tax will be payable on any gains you make above the £3,000 allowance. Hopefully you know the purchase prices of all your shares.

eskbanker

No, you couldn't have moved them straight into an ISA without selling and rebuying, although some providers will facilitate this by linking the transactions under a Bed & ISA banner.

You will be liable for capital gains tax if the gains on the disposals exceed your annual exempt amount of £3K, so you need to work out the base cost of each of your holdings, or restrict your sales to £3K worth (per tax year) to be on the safe side if that's impractical....

Blackavar

leosayer said:

You can only pay cash into an ISA - you can't transfer shares. So you'll need to sell them first.

Capital gains tax will be payable on any gains you make above the £3,000 allowance. Hopefully you know the purchase prices of all your shares.

Okay thanks. It’s a stocks and shares ISA hence the question. Who calculates the value for tax? HMRC or the share platform? Thanks 

leosayer

Just to add that I've got a friend who is trying to sell some Barclays shares that he bought decades ago - he still has he certificates.

They're worth £10k+ but he has no idea about the book cost so has asked Equiniti to provide his transaction history - he's been waiting a few weeks.

EthicsGradient

Blackavar said:

Since initiating the registration of the M&S shares with IWeb, I’ve received a fairly stern letter from M&S saying that as I had not been in contact with them for several years my shares would be sold and monies given to good causes unless I contact Equiniti to discuss. I just want to sell them with as little overhead as possible. 

Any advice gratefully received.

That sounds slightly strange. Did you used to receive dividends from M&S via a cheque in the post, and you'd moved and never told them your new address? There should have been no need to "be in contact with them", but I suppose that if they were getting letters returned as "not known at this address" they could take the attitude they can't carry on sending dividends there. But this does raise the question of what happened to any missing dividends. And also how M&S managed to get in contact with you now. 

I think it might be worth looking again at what M&S said to you, carefully; there may be dividends owing to you.

eskbanker

Blackavar said:
Who calculates the value for tax? HMRC or the share platform? Thanks 

It's your responsibility, but if you don't have the purchase prices from contract notes, etc, then you may be able to obtain these from the platform via which you originally bought them.

Alexland

Blackavar said:

Okay thanks. It’s a stocks and shares ISA hence the question. Who calculates the value for tax? HMRC or the share platform? Thanks 

These shares would have been added into your iWeb share dealing account and you are responsible for reporting any capital gains occurring as a result of sale above the allowance to HMRC. At £5k it may not be likely you have made a capital gain above £3k but if unsure the simplest thing to do would be to sell £3k this tax year and the balance next tax year starting on 6th April.

Blackavar

EthicsGradient said:

Blackavar said:

Since initiating the registration of the M&S shares with IWeb, I’ve received a fairly stern letter from M&S saying that as I had not been in contact with them for several years my shares would be sold and monies given to good causes unless I contact Equiniti to discuss. I just want to sell them with as little overhead as possible. 

Any advice gratefully received.

That sounds slightly strange. Did you used to receive dividends from M&S via a cheque in the post, and you'd moved and never told them your new address? There should have been no need to "be in contact with them", but I suppose that if they were getting letters returned as "not known at this address" they could take the attitude they can't carry on sending dividends there. But this does raise the question of what happened to any missing dividends. And also how M&S managed to get in contact with you now. 

I think it might be worth looking again at what M&S said to you, carefully; there may be dividends owing to you.

The M&S shares were inherited about 10 years ago. I think I have had a cheque or two bur amounts were very small so probably didn’t bother cashing them (wish I had now). I also get the odd tiny dividend from Lloyds bank but have no idea why as don’t have a share certificate so don’t know what I have. The cost of buying a replacement via Equiniti is probably more than these shares are worth.