CGT selling and buying back same shares with the same tax year

I gifted shares to my husband this tax year. He sold them this tax year making a gain based on difference from my original acquisition value some years ago. This gain was below the CGT allowance. He bought some shares and would now like to sell and buy back to put into an ISA for this tax year. The total gain (including this second sale) would still not take him over the CGT allowance for this year. Am I right in thinking this is OK and he doesn’t need to declare this? ( Also I’ve heard about a 30 day rule - does he have to wait 30 days before repurchasing the same shares in the ISA?)

(Well done on gifting shares, this effectively doubles your capital gain allowance using your spouse) You don't say whether the shares he purchased were the same. If they were then things like the 30-day rule would come into play if this was within that time period after the sale of the ones you gifted. If they were just different shares and then sold shortly after in order to put into an ISA instead, then all that has happened is creeping closer to the capital gains limit for this tax year. He will have to declare, if the amounts involved are over four times the gain allowance. I.e. 12300×4=49200. This is just an annoying technicality, especially if the gain was well under the limit. A lot of people deliberately try to stay just under the gain limit, but depending on the markets, making £12k gain may involve large amounts of money. What I do is put all the sums and a written explanation into a PDF and upload it with the tax return. I don't end up paying tax but annoyingly I have to go through the effort of telling them, and they have to go through the effort of auditing this... I think they should reconsider this rule. Purchasing in an ISA does not require you to wait 30 days. Under some circumstances it can be advantageous to utilise the 30-day rule repurchasing shares (outside the ISA wrapper). It changes what the sale shares are matched against to the ones you have just purchased again, rather than the potentially quite low/old section 104 holding mean. So I guess you could technically call this a disadvantage of purchasing in an ISA in some rare circumstances. Otherwise normally purchasing in the ISA is just a good idea & almost certainly in your case.

Thank you - very helpful and what I thought! (They were a different lot of shares from the first ones and the total is well below the 4x allowance.)

Hi Morven Main,

There is no Capital Gain Tax liability arising from the transfer of assets from husband and wife and civil partners. The gains from both disposals are below the annual exempt allowance, so there is no capital gains tax to pay. There is nothing to report to HMRC in this circumstance.  

From 6 April 2020 to 27 October 2021, anyone who disposed of residential property or land and had Capital Gains Tax to pay (CGT), needed to report and pay the tax within 30 days. Disposals of residential property or land after 27 October 2021, with CGT to pay, need to report and pay the tax within 60 days. late filine, and late payment penalties, as well as interest (charged on a daily basis) will apply where these timescales are not met.

Thank you.

Thank you for this reply. Very helpful.