Selling shares & CGT

notlongnow85

Over many years of working I Bought shares in the company I worked for through sharesave schemes as and when they were issued, the money came directly from my wages so it was a way of saving

 As they were bought at different times obviously the cost per share was different 

I later transferred them all into a stockbroker account where they have sat ever since,but I’d now like to sell them

For working out capital gains tax do I just add up the total amount I have spent divided by the number of shares I have, as I’ll have no way of knowing which actual shares get sold on the day. Wish I’d sold a few years ago before the CG level dropped and I would have had to worry about the tax 😩 

Thanks in advance

EthicsGradient

Yes, you add up the total you spent acquiring them (if there were fees at the time, you can deduct those - I'd hope a sharesave scheme didn't apply fees, but I don't know), and the total number you have now, and that's a "pool" of your shares (sometimes called a "section 104 pool" from the regulation that defines this), which is treated as a block, acquired at that average price. If you sell some of them now, you divide the cost of what you're selling and keeping according to the proportion of shares you're selling.

masonic

When calculating capital gains, you need to use the average cost for a pool of shares anyway. If they were all purchased at the market price, then what you suggest should work if you have all of that information. If you got a better than market value deal then you may overestimate, but I don't see HMRC complaining about that!