Capital Gains Tax

Is this someone, a company that pays corporation tax? If so, when, exactly, did the purchase happen?

Are they are higher rate tax payer, or close to the threshold?

Thanks for the reply. This is an individual, not even self-employed. I believe his income would be around the 30k pa area - so a bit below the higher rate threshold. My question is really about the length of time that an asset is held - ie does HMRC make any allowance for the reduction in real-term gain over time. It would seem very unfair if there is no allowance for inflation if an asset bought 20 or 30 years ago is disposed of.

As the first reference explains, they used to make an allowance, then they froze it and introduced a different way of rewarding non-day traders, but recently they eliminated all of these for individuals.

The first sub-reference, from the first reference, goes into a lot of the history.

However acquisition and sales costs (e.g. solicitor's fees) can be set against the initial value, and, for something like land, which has to be maintained, you may be able to set the cost of maintenance off against the initial cost, although I have no personal experience of this.

Also note that HMRC expect the taxpayer to do most of the calculation, so if the person doesn't understand the rules, based on the material supplied with the capital gains form, they need to consult an accountant, or at least contact HMRC for clarification.

Many thanks for your help, I'm very grateful to you.

I thought that they used to make such an allowance. Still seems very unfair to me that they don't any longer.

The great god Gordon abolished indexing.

and you get around not being able to carry forward your annual allowance by "bed and breakfasting" your assets, but it's not very easy to do with a specific piece of land (though not entirely impossible).

tim