Six easy (and completely legal) ways to avoid capital gains tax

The tax-free allowance for capital gains will be slashed yet again from April, dropping from £6,000 to £3,000.

But luckily there are ways you can avoid the latest tax grab.

April’s allowance cut comes after the threshold was dramatically lowered from £12,300 last year as part of a multi-billion pound tax grab. Another dramatic cut this spring will come as a blow to investors and second-home owners who will be forced to hand over more of their profits to the taxman.

Any share gains over the allowance (currently £6,000, but soon just £3,000) are taxed at 10pc, for basic-rate payers, and 18pc for higher-rate payers. Rates of 28pc and 20pc apply to residential property sales.

You can find out how much you owe to HMRC for property gains using our calculator below.

Savers are also jittery at the prospect of a new Labour government, as the party is said to be considering a raid if it wins the next election. Labour is reportedly considering increasing rates in line with income tax, meaning the current rate could double to 40pc for a higher earner. 

Here, Telegraph Money explores six of the options open to savvy investors who want to prevent their CGT bill going through the roof.

Max out your allowance

One of the easiest solutions is to ensure the full tax-free allowance is used each year, because it cannot be applied retrospectively, carried forward or transferred to a spouse. 

Nimesh Shah, of accountants Blick Rothenberg, advised a tactic known as “bed and breakfasting” to help make the most of the full annual exemption. This involves selling shares either side of a new tax year to crystallise a capital gain. 

He added: “The tax rules to calculate capital gains mean you cannot repurchase the same shares within 30 days, but you could use your spouse or an Isa to purchase the shares and legitimately circumvent the 30-day rule.”

If you’re selling an asset that can be sold off in chunks, you could also lower or avoid paying CGT by selling gains in instalments – across multiple tax years. For instance, you could sell some of your investment before April 5 and then another lot in the new tax year.

Make use of tax-free wrappers

If you hold investments outside of a tax-free wrapper, the best thing to do is transfer them into an Isa or – assuming you can part with the money for longer – into a pension. 

The annual allowance for an Isa is £20,000, while most taxpayers can contribute up to £60,000 a year into their pension without paying tax. 

If you are already sitting on large capital gains, you can sell the assets to realise a gain up to your remaining CGT allowance and then repurchase the investments within your Isa or pension to protect any future gains from the tax man.

These processes are called “bed and Isa” or “bed and pension”.

Enterprise Investment Schemes

Asset gains can be reinvested into Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) – a type of high-risk venture capital investment – and deferred over the duration of the investment.

EIS is a government initiative aimed at helping small businesses raise cash, whereby investors are rewarded with CGT relief.

Chris Etherington, of accountancy firm RSM, says opting for EIS could be a shrewd move.

He said: “You can essentially defer your gains, with the mindset ‘I’m going to kick that tax problem down the line until I actually sell my EIS investment’. So it’s a deferral rather than a tax saving. But if the investment is a favourable one and the company becomes a big name, it’s probably one of the most tax efficient moves you can make.”

Mr Shah advised that investors should be cautious.

“It is possible to defer capital gains into the EIS investment, but this decision should be carefully considered as the capital gains will be revived when the investment is sold and taxed at the rate at the time.

“So this could be higher than the current CGT rate. Also capital gains on the sale of the EIS investment will be exempt from CGT only if certain qualifying conditions are met, including broadly holding the shares for three years.”

Transfer assets to husband, wife or civil partner

In the vast majority of cases, CGT is not payable on gifts to a husband, wife or civil partner, unless you separated and did not live together at all in the tax year.

However, your partner may be liable for tax if they later sell the asset and the gain will be calculated on the difference in value from when you first owned it and when they sold it.

Once the asset is transferred to your partner they are the legal owner, so you need to be confident in the strength of the relationship.

Mr Etherington said: “It makes sense to split things as efficiently as possible between spouses and partners, though you do need to be mindful of things like divorce.

“What HMRC doesn’t like is when it’s not a genuine gift. For example, if you transferred an asset to a spouse, sold it, and then all the money came back into your bank account. That’s when they would take issue.”

Mr Etherington explained that couples can also make use of the “bed and spouse” method. “If one spouse sells and then the other spouse will buy it. This is something which doesn’t seem to be challenged by HMRC.”

Spouses can do this transferring of shares trick on the same day as long as it is done through the stock market.

Claim for losses

No-one wants to lose money on an asset, but if you do, you can leverage those losses (including on assets such as cryptocurrency) to offset capital gains you’ve made elsewhere when you come to sell or dispose of it.

Any excess losses can also be carried forward to help with future tax liabilities. Investors would need to make a claim for capital losses, usually through a self-assessment tax return.

Capital losses from the 2019-20 tax year need to be claimed by April 5 this year as there is a four-year window to claim losses.

Private residence relief

Relief on the sale of your main home is one of the biggest tax breaks of all. Between 2021 and 2022 homeowners saved £37.3bn in capital gains tax.

But private residence relief cannot be claimed on parts of property used exclusively for business use, although having a “temporary or occasional” home office is allowed. Nor will HMRC allow you to claim the relief if the property has been let out – this can be tricky to navigate.

With working from home being more commonplace, there have been fears people will compromise the tax relief available to them. But Mr Etherington said: “Generally speaking, it shouldn’t be a problem as long as the home office is in a room used for different purposes and not just dedicated for business.”

HMRC states having a lodger does not disqualify a property owner from claiming private residence relief, but Airbnb hosts and other short-term landlords can find themselves restricted.