# Writing off a loss against cgt



## terencemc (18 Apr 2012)

Hey Guys,
I have what I think is a simple question. My mum sold shares for a profit pre the recession and paid cgt of approx 5k to the tax man in 2008. If she sells some of her shares which are down at the moment to make say a 5k loss, can she claim that back?

Also, I had shares which were nationalised (anglo) and have shares which are in the positive currently. Can I write the cgt due for the current shares off against my loss of the anglo shares?

Thanks


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## Brendan Burgess (18 Apr 2012)

You can carry losses forward, but you cannot carry them back.

So your mother cannot set the losses on her current shares against the profits she made a few years ago.

You can set the losses you made on Anglo against the profits on your other shares. 

It is important in a diverse portfolio to plan the sales to make sure that you don't sell shares at a  profit  before selling others at a loss in a later tax year.


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## Stockmaster (3 Aug 2012)

I have a question, can you carry the full loss going forward, or is it only the effective capital gains rate that you can carry forward. ie, if I had a loss of 9000€, can I carry the 9000€ as a loss going forward or is 3000€ the capital gains rate 30%


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## mandelbrot (3 Aug 2012)

Stockmaster said:


> I have a question, can you carry the full loss going forward, or is it only the effective capital gains rate that you can carry forward. ie, if I had a loss of 9000€, can I carry the 9000€ as a loss going forward or is 3000€ the capital gains rate 30%



You carry forward the full loss, without any adjustment for a change in the CGT rate. It works in peoples favour now, but may work against them if the rate goes down in the future.


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## Stockmaster (3 Aug 2012)

mandelbrot, just to clarify I am a bit slow today, do I carry the 3000 or 9000 forward - Thanks


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## Stockmaster (3 Aug 2012)

mandelbrot, just to clarify I am a bit slow today, do I carry the 3000 or 9000 forward - Also do I add transaction costs to the losses and they get carried forward as well as transaction costs can be high with a large number of small amount trades


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## mandelbrot (3 Aug 2012)

Stockmaster said:


> mandelbrot, just to clarify I am a bit slow today, do I carry the 3000 or 9000 forward - Also do I add transaction costs to the losses and they get carried forward as well as transaction costs can be high with a large number of small amount trades



You really need to read the CGT1, it has worked examples of calculating gains/losses on share transactions in it! http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/cgt/leaflets/cgt1.pdf

To clarify; the loss is the loss, so if you made a loss of 9,000 then that's what you carry forward, and when you have a gian in a future year it reduces this gain. The tax is then calculated (at whatever the prevailing CGT rate is) on the reduced gain.

Transaction costs are allowable costs for CGT purposes, so they are part of the calculation (selling costs are deducted from the proceeds, purchase costs are added to the purchase price).


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## Stockmaster (8 Aug 2012)

Thanks that explains it, just in the tax returns it can seem quite a large amount when you add up all the purchase costs on all the transactions and all the sale proceeds on all the sales. say I deal in an account that has 50K and turn it over only 3  times a year that is 150K purchase cost and Profit or loss of  +-10/20% and the related transaction costs. And if you use margin everything is fdouble that.


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## taytoman (11 Aug 2012)

Just to ask a further question re carrying forward CGT losses on shares, which posters have already explained well. Can a CGT loss on shares be offset against future CGT gains on assets other than shares? Can it be offset against say currency gains on a non-euro bank account? Can it be offset against ETF share or bond fund gains?


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