• Make sure you utilise your annual tax-free allowance of £12,300. Consider selling assets, shares for example, that can be sold within the tax-free allowance.
• If your chargeable gains are likely to exceed the £12,300 limit, are there any assets you can sell at a loss to reduce the total gains below the tax-free limit? It is no longer possible to sell and buy back shares to facilitate this planning option: the so-called “bed and breakfast” arrangement.
• If you are contemplating the sale of your business make sure you have arranged your affairs such that you can claim Business Asset Disposal Relief. This will potentially allow you to make qualifying gains of up to £1m and only pay CGT at 10%.
• As the level of your taxable income, for income tax purposes, will affect the rate of CGT you will pay, investigating ways to reduce your income tax earnings may save you CGT as well as income tax.
• A gift of chargeable assets to your spouse does not create a CGT charge.
• Your spouse and children also qualify for a separate tax-free allowance of £12,300. Transferring assets between family members can reduce overall CGT liabilities if considered before a sale.
• It may be possible to claim other reliefs to reduce your potential liability to CGT. These could include rollover and hold-over gains reliefs. If you are likely to make significant capital gains during 2022-23, please contact us for advice as soon as possible so that we can explore available strategies for minimizing your CGT bill.
• Although the sale of your main home is generally free of CGT, if you have let the property for any time during your period of ownership, or if you have made significant use of the property for business purposes, then there may be a CGT liability when you sell. If you are affected, make sure you take advice on this issue.
• CGT payable on chargeable disposals after 5 April 2022 and before 6 April 2023 will be due for payment 31 January 2024. If you delay the disposal until after 5 April 2023, any CGT due will be payable a year later, 31 January 2025. Theoretically, you could delay a disposal by one day (from the 5 April 2023 to the 6 April 2023) and it would extend the amount of time you would have to pay the tax by 12 months. Exceptionally, gains on disposals of certain residential property need to be reported to HMRC within 60-days of the sale and any CGT due on the sale would need to be paid within the same 60-day period.

Review all the assets you own that are currently worth less than you paid for them. Should you dispose of them and make use of the capital losses? Which would be the best tax year to register the loss? This could include a claim to treat shares as having no value (a negligible value claim).