Calculating CGT on sale of shares over several years

[whatsupdoc9999]

Hi,

I am looking for some guidance on the calculation of CGT on the sale of shares/funds. Looking online I have found guidance on the sale of shares simply bought and sold but cannot find anything on a situation where shares have been swapped (multiple times) over the years.

About 15 years ago I invested some cash with a fund supermarket and bought unit trusts/funds. As advised, I regularly reviewed their performance and would often 'swap' funds. It would not always be pound for pound as I may swap units in one fund for a lower amount of units in two or more funds or sometimes simply take shares in a company rather than unit trusts. Further, on occasions I have sold some shares and taken money from the fund (when the CGT threshold was higher than the £3000 now). Over the years I have traded/swapped between unit trusts/funds, shares and ETFs.

I am now looking at withdrawing cash from the account but am not sure how to calculate the CGT.

Also, is there any form of allowance for holding the funds for 15 years?

Any guidance or reference to guidance online would be a great help and thanks in advance for any assistance.

I'm not quite sure what a fund supermarket is, but my understanding is that each sale is a taxable.event - regardless of whether you withdraw or reinvest the money. Swapping funds involves selling one and buying the other, so is still a 'sale'.

And there's no allowance I know of for how long you've held an asset.

By "fund supermarket" I take it you mean something like Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, Interactive Investor etc

Also, since you are talking about CGT, I take it that these are not funds that are included in a stocks and shares ISA because any gains within an ISA are not subject to CGT.

"...and would often 'swap' funds."

As the previous poster says, if by "swap" you mean that you sold the units you had in one fund in order to buy units in another fund or individual shares then each time you sold the units any profits you made would need to be considered for CGT at the time.

"...on occasions I have sold some shares and taken money from the fund"

Again, any profit that you had made at the time on those shares would need to be considered for CGT at that time.

"I am now looking at withdrawing cash from the account but am not sure how to calculate the CGT."

Again, assuming that these are not in an ISA.

For each of the individual unit trusts/funds, shares and ETFs that you currently own and you intend to sell, you need to compare the price they were when you bought them and the price they are when you come to sell.

If you have made a profit on them then that is where you start working out how much CGT you have to pay.

You should have a tax statement annually from your provider that outlines your taxable gains. If you haven't ever paid the CGT, maybe your gains were below the annual allowance, which was 6k last year I think, less now.