Selling Shares With No Value To Realise Capital Loss

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dublinwoman72

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I have shares in an AIM quoted company that have lost more than 99 per cent of their value and are effectively worthless ( maybe €10 -€20 ). I would like to use this capital loss to offset against a capital gain on a property sale. Do Revenue require me to physically sell the shares ( not sure if this is possible and would cost maybe more than they are worth ) or will they accept that this is a “paper” complete loss?
 
Am in the same position OP and yes you have to sell them to actually realise the loss. I’ve AIB shares from way back which I’m still holding to sell when I need to offset against a capital gain. Revenue advised me of this a few years ago.

That’s my experience. I wish you well with it.
 
Do a web search for the following and the resulting Revenue PDF document may be of relevance.

Disposals where assets lost or destroyed or become of negligible value (S.538)

This is the relevant Statutory Instrument:

Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997, Section 538

The electronic Irish Statute Book (eISB) comprises the Acts of the Oireachtas (Parliament), Statutory Instruments, Legislation Directory, Constitution and a limited number of pre-1922 Acts.
www.irishstatutebook.ie
 
garbanzo said:
Am in the same position OP and yes you have to sell them to actually realise the loss. ... Revenue advised me of this a few years ago
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That's not necessarily true - see my previous post.
Maybe it was correct in the your specific case but it's not correct in the general case.
Revenue are not always correct in the information that they give out (I know this from personal experience and other anecdotal reports).
And they don't offer "advice" to taxpayers.
 
Thank you for your replies. I might put a query into Revenue through my account to try and get a diffinitive answer!
 
dublinwoman72 said:
Thank you for your replies. I might put a query into Revenue through my account to try and get a diffinitive answer!
Click to expand...
As I already said Revenue can and have given incorrect information and don't provide binding advice. If you don't trust the links that I posted (including the actual letter of the law) then you should engage an independent expert tax advisor.
 
If share is still quoted, you have to sell to realise yhe gain.

Take AIB shares, they are worth less probably 1/1000 of previous value due to share re-organisation/restructuring but still have a value so you need to sell, whereas Anglo Irish Bank was deemed worthless so can take full loss.

Selling shares is on a fifo basis, so you could technically buy them again on degiro wait 4 weeks sell online and the ones you sell are the initial ones. That's what I did with AIB shares as no way to sell 10 shares after reorganisation that was probably 2000 old shares.
 
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