Capital gains shares/savings/dividends

[Impatient1987]

Hi all,

Forgive my complete ignorance but for the first time ever I think I need to pay capital gains tax. Wanted to check what im paying it on and I have 3 "gains" in question:

1. sale of shares (ordinary shares not SIP) - i believe I need to pay tax on the profit only (minus 3k allowamce). For clarity these were bought in an employee share scheme and matured between 2017 and 2023. 2)savings interest 3)dividends - some are from SIP shares (are these subject to capital gains?) Some from ordinary shares

Are those all correct to report? And any advice or tips on how to report?

Im a higher rate tax payer on PAYE.

Thank you

Yes all correct to report. You get a tax free allowance for savings and dividends too, all detailed on the gov website. Register for self assessment online.

Thank you @Hurumphh there seems to be 2 options -
Report in a Self Assessment tax return
Or
Report using the ‘real time’ Capital Gains Tax service

Is one more foolproof than the other?

Have you sold them yet? Have you used your ISA allowance? If not you can transfer them into a stocks and shares ISA then you won’t need to pay capital when you sell them.

Make sure you are registered with HMRC. The deadline is soon, maybe this week.
Savings interest is income so you need to report that separately if over the tax free allowance for savings. Dividends also income so you won't be able to just use the CGT reporting tool. SIPPs would be tax free.

If you’ve got 3 things to report I’d go for self assessment. If you just had dividends to declare, there’s a way to report that on its own. Not sure about the ‘real time capital gains’ - is that a way to report capital gains on its own perhaps? Either way, if you’ve got two or three different things just do everything in one go via self assessment. It’s not as horrendous as people make it out to be! Ideally keep records as you go through the year, gather your P60, PD11 etc together, and set aside a couple of hours to fill it in. It makes it much easier if you’ve got everything to hand when you do it, but you can save progress as you go and come back to things before you submit.

On savings interest, note (if you have any kids) your kids savings interest counts towards your total if it’s accumulated from money you’ve saved for them, but there’s also a tax free allowance for that too (£100 from memory, but check).

Oh god what? I assumed it was all Capital Gains but now im learning just the share sale is and the dividends are a different tax? Ok so Self Assessment sounds like the way to go here. At least thats progress 😰

https://www.gov.uk/register-for-self-assessment

The deadline is 5 October so don't put it off.

It seems that interest on savings is reported to HMRC via the banks and my PAYE tax code will be adjusted to accommodate that income. So maybe its only the share sales and dividends I need to report? Or am I just being over optimistic there?

Is this for current tax year (2025/26)? Or prevoous tax year?

Previous tax year.

You enter interest on savings on your SA yourself.

With the dividends if you have a HMRC account for PAYE you can do it online within the account or you can just ring them up, DH rang them a couple of weeks ago and got through reasonably quickly, I think his tax code is altered the following year. Though because of the CGT as well SA will probably be best. You are reporting the dividends for year 24/25. Have you had dividends on previous years, the year before was £1000 before tax and I think before that, £2000. I feel a lot will get caught by this.

As others have said, I would do all this via a self assessment- you can report CGT and income on the sane form. The real time CGT tool is for people who make a one off disposal and want to deal with it immediately rather than wait for the end of the tax year to do a SA. In your case, since there’s more than just CGT to declare, I wouldn’t bother with it, just complete a SA.

There are three allowances that apply- CGT, savings and dividends. You should be entitled to them all.

The only thing I’m not clear on are the tax rules governing SIP shares as there are some tax advantages (eg no tax due on dividends if they are reinvested and held for at least three years). You’d need to break down the amounts involved i.e. ordinary shares vs SIP shares and calculate the tax owed accordingly.

If you mean your tax code should be adjusted automatically, I wouldn’t count on it. It hasn’t happened to me and I’m a higher rate taxpayer.

Or if you mean you tell your employer about your savings and ask them to adjust your tax code, well maybe that’s a thing.

I report all my additional income including savings interest via a SA.

I think previous years are all ok, its just dividends this year (due to maturity of sharesave schemes) though having said that, my tax code is 644L so I understand there must be some adjustment going on for last year...

I want to make sure I get it right as ive had a few Gains this tax year (just sold some shares + dividends in sep and March next year) plus ive moved some money into a savings account so thats generating interest monthly now.

So am I right in thinking the above mentioned share sale and dividends + interest need to be reported for the current 25/26 tax year and I cant do that Self Assessment until after the current year ends?

Thank you all for your help so far

You only need to report if there is any tax to pay. Have you worked out the totals, deducted the respective allowances and decided this is the case?

As I said earlier, there may be no tax due on the dividends paid on your SIP shares depending on the timeframes involved.

please confirm what type of share "save" scheme you were in as the tax treatment varies

the norm would be a SAYE (save as you earn) scheme
one alternative would be a SIP (share incentive plan)

CGT liability varies depending on scheme type
income tax liability on the dividends paid by the scheme also varies, it can be completely tax free if you met the relevant criteria - your employer really should have told you this

Yes, i believe I get 500 allowance for savings interest and ill be over that this year for sure. Dividends i think is also 500 and im over that also.

Just a clarification. I have both SIPP shares and SAYE shares. The SIPP shares Im ignoring as they aren't relevant for tax. Im taking about the sale of ordinary shares and the dividends earned from ordinary shares.

I have both SIPP and ordinary shares obtained via SAYE. It's just ordinary shares in referring to here

for the SAYE shares you will calculate your gross gain using the option purchase price and the actual selling price

if your scheme paid a bonus ("interest") on maturity then that monetary value is free of income tax provided it is used in full to purchase the shares., eg: you saved £100 per month for 3 years (total £3,600) and get a bonus on maturity then your purchase cost will be 3,600+bonus x option price.

assuming you have no other capital gains that tax year you can then deduct your CGT allowance of £3,000 to give the next taxable gain. If that is a positive figure you will declare the calculation and pay the CGT at 24% as part of your annual self assessment tax return

if you have already sold the shares on or before 5th April 2025 then they fall in 24/25 tax year and you have until tomorrow, 5 Oct 25, to register for SA (if not already in it). If sold after that date you have until 5 Oct 26 to register

for the cash savings interest you will declare it as part of your SA and will get the £500 personal savings allowance as a HR taxpayer.

for the dividends from your shares you will declare them as part of your SA and will get the £500 dividends allowance as a HR taxpayer.

The live reporting of a capital gain can be used in circumstances like selling a second home when the CGT is due within ?30 days of the sale. It changed in the last few years.

It’s 60 days

If you do a self assessment you just fill everything in (earnings, savings interest, dividends, capital gains and anything else) and it gets calculated for you. If you don't understand it all trying to just report odd bits that you think you need to may put you in a problem with HMRC if you get it wrong. I'd go for the self assessment, or ring up HMRC and explain it all.

Self assessment runs from April to April and you report everything during the period by the following January. So now reporting April 24 to April 25 due January 26.

And you put in all the figures you don't have to figure out if you have to declare it or if you actually owe tax, it's all done for you.

you have no option whatsoever. OP is a HR taxpayer, if they have £1 that is liable for tax they are required to do SA, in which case they must complete all sections that apply to their circumstances:

• earned income
• savings interest
• dividends
• CGT
• anything else...