# Spread Betting - is it subject to Irish Capital Gains Tax (Mark Shipman)



## neiltheseal (1 Oct 2007)

Mark Shipman (http://www.trend-follower.com) mentions that spread betting on the financial markets is not subject to capital gains tax in the UK. Does anyone know what the situation is in Ireland?
Has anyone read his book "The next big investment booom" and been following the advice which he gives?
He was on the late late show last April -  [broken link removed] 

Neil


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## neiltheseal (1 Oct 2007)

I can answer part of my own question. Capital Gains Tax does not apply in Ireland either. There's a good calculation here
[broken link removed]

The issue is the risk - it's like a margin account so much higher risk.


Neil


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## dunkamania (1 Oct 2007)

spread bettting is considered gambling for taxation,so no unless you are a full time spreadbetter,in which case it would fall under income tax.Not 100%,you should get clarification from a professional


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## MichaelDes (1 Oct 2007)

dunkamania said:


> spread bettting is considered gambling for taxation,so no unless you are a full time spreadbetter,in which case it would fall under income tax.Not 100%,you should get clarification from a professional


 
You do not need professional advice. It is exempt, same as a professional gambler. No stamp duty on the shares and no CGT. 

Very interesting piece about Soft Comodities and Water, tipped both heavily in AAM thread 2 weeks ago under OPI(Argentina). Anyone interested in likely area's of where to buy into Water or Softs can post me (unfortunately no where near as rich as Shipman). Dollar is set to devalue much further so commodity interest will continue to peak. America has lost $10trillion in actual wealth reduction as a result of currency devaluation - well done Mr Bush!


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## demoivre (1 Oct 2007)

MichaelDes said:


> You do not need professional advice. It is exempt, same as a professional gambler. No stamp duty on the shares and no CGT.



Correct and no income tax either even if you day trade using spread bets - on the other hand losses cannot be offet for tax purposes.


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## Zoran (11 Jan 2008)

And probably no profit either 

The only thing you will probably need will not be there - to offset losses from your real stock market positions or use your losses next year.

What spread betting brokers traded here: CGT that nobody can use as majority are loosers for a lot of profit from transaction costs.

I wish I can trade something I do not have for some money 
Not that smart of course even if I can destroy my ethical argument.


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## ajapale (11 Jan 2008)

MichaelDes said:


> You do not need professional advice.


 
While this is correct in relation to betting, in matters of personal taxation it is always advisable to seek independant, professional financial advice.


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## croker (11 Jan 2008)

> I wish I can trade something I do not have for some money
> Not that smart of course even if I can destroy my ethical argument.


Do you have the same problem with borrowing shares or short selling?


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## Zoran (11 Jan 2008)

> Do you have the same problem with borrowing shares or short selling?
Not doing that as do not know how to consistently win it.

The only thing I know that can make me money similar to the market average on the long run is buy&hold well diversified portfolio of cheap passive indexed funds (e.g. Vanguard, Fidelity) with periodic rebalancing.
Read some real academic work and not believe in something called "financial porn" in the US. 

Spread betting is too risky, similar or even more to futures and even probably more then futures.
In futures (spread betting) market small number of people are winning a lot and they are usually either best pros or lucky people at that moment.
Consistently winning year after year is almost impossible.

Go away from such thing and you will most probable save time and money.


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## croker (11 Jan 2008)

> > Do you have the same problem with borrowing shares or short selling?
> Not doing that as do not know how to consistently win it.
> 
> The only thing I know that can make me money similar to the market average on the long run is buy&hold well diversified portfolio of cheap passive indexed funds (e.g. Vanguard, Fidelity) with periodic rebalancing.
> ...


So you dont have an 'ethical argument' against short selling or spreadbetting(long or short), it is just that you dont understand how people can make money from it, which is fair enough. I was just curious about the ethical point.
I totally agree with you that if someone cannot consistently make money through standard share trading they should not try futures or spreadbetting - good advice.


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## Zoran (11 Jan 2008)

>So you dont have an 'ethical argument' against short selling or spreadbetting(long or short), it is just that you dont understand how people can make money from it, which is fair enough. I was just curious about the ethical point.

I am pretty sure that the majority of people are loosing money over some longer period of time (if they survive a couple of weeks of leveraged investing they are probably more lucky then having the winning trading method).
It will be interesting to know the statistics from spread bettors about their customers but I assume such fact will force many people away from them.
You have some academic work from regular stock brokers where they found that investors with above $100,000 in account and focused investment (1-2 stock positions) outperformed small accounts with less then $100,000.
But not too many people should bear such risk and being invested in 1 or 2 stocks.

I have never seen the mathematics behind calculating the risk for leveraged positions, e.g. spread betting or futures.

About "ethic" I started thinking recently. It looks that if somebody is making money somebody else needs to loose. 
If I am making $millions that will mean a lot of small investors (probably gamblers) are loosing their hard earned money.
I am not sure that will stop me if I know the way to make money that way.

I am more unhappy about people pushing other to invest in spread betting without warning them enough that this is so risky and that majority of people are loosing money.
That is probably more unethical to me then people making money but I may be wrong.
I think that propaganda to use active investing or even worse trading to make money is not good for people.

>I totally agree with you that if someone cannot consistently make money through standard share trading they should not try futures or spreadbetting - good advice.

That is for a sure. If you are individual investor (not pro working for some big market maker) you must be out of mind going futures, options or spread betting way.
Even pros are not making money on the long run (except some tiny number). Look what is happening to these hedge funds with Nobel prize winners and phds, with crazy powerful computers and information (e.g. LTCM from the past).


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## Galway5 (3 Dec 2008)

Hi guys,

I have heard a friend tell me that he was thinking of setting up a company to transact in spread betting in a sizeable way (and hopefully make a profit). I have searched a bit on the web on and on other taxation related websites. Does anyone know whether this would be taxable within a company as investment income or trading income as I presume it would taxable?

Thanks.


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