I've been wondering about this for a long time, but I've never really been able to find a satisfying answer anywhere, so you never know, I might find the answer here. Please note that the reason I haven't gone through a professional accountant is because this is really just out of curiosity.
I've been playing on the US stock markets for a while. The convenient thing about it is that when I finish my daytime job, the markets are still open in the US so I can trade freely.
It has never been anything more than a hobby, but say that suddenly I was serious about it and started to invest some real money and trade much more actively. Could that be considered a second job for tax purposes which would allow me in theory to expense my books and subscriptions?
Now imagine that I was actually making a big amount of money, a lot more than the capital gains free allowance, wouldn't it be more efficient to have a limited company, or even better, as I only trade on US markets, have an american company and only be ytaxed on the dividends I get from the company. This would probably make it easier to calculate the gains that I have made including the change rate since there would only be a lump sum payment from time to time.