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House Price Crash forum > Investment > Gold and other precious metals
the_skeptic
Anyone who's been buying gold via bullionvault in recent times is likely to be sitting with some potential capital gains at the moment.

We each get a £9200 tax free allowance of capital gains each year so it would seem to make sense to realise gains to use up this allowance as it can't be rolled over.

My questions are:

Can you sell to realise a gain and buy straight back in or does this fall foul of CGT legislation? (I think there is some sort of rule that says you can't buy back within 30 days for some types of asset?)

Would the above have to be done by selling on april 5th and buying back on april 6th or could you do it any day before april 5th?

If you have been steadily buying over a period at different prices then can you choose which 'bits' of gold you are selling? - i.e. say you bought 10k's worth at 650 and later another 10k's worth at 800 then if you sell 10k's worth can you say you are selling the 650 stuff or the 800 stuff or a bit of both? I know there are rules for selling shares/unit trusts in this situation which stipulate that you are deemed to have sold them in a certain order (last in first out), but does this apply to gold via bullionvault??

Can you offset the costs involved in selling (e.g. bv's comission) against the capital gains?
Can you offset the storage costs charged by bullionvault against the capital gains?


That's probably enough questions for now! I've tried to find answers via the HMRC website but being quite a specific case it's not covered by any of their examples.
D'oh
QUOTE (the_skeptic @ Feb 23 2008, 09:57 AM) *
Anyone who's been buying gold via bullionvault in recent times is likely to be sitting with some potential capital gains at the moment.

We each get a £9200 tax free allowance of capital gains each year so it would seem to make sense to realise gains to use up this allowance as it can't be rolled over.

My questions are:

Can you sell to realise a gain and buy straight back in or does this fall foul of CGT legislation? (I think there is some sort of rule that says you can't buy back within 30 days for some types of asset?)

Would the above have to be done by selling on april 5th and buying back on april 6th or could you do it any day before april 5th?

If you have been steadily buying over a period at different prices then can you choose which 'bits' of gold you are selling? - i.e. say you bought 10k's worth at 650 and later another 10k's worth at 800 then if you sell 10k's worth can you say you are selling the 650 stuff or the 800 stuff or a bit of both? I know there are rules for selling shares/unit trusts in this situation which stipulate that you are deemed to have sold them in a certain order (last in first out), but does this apply to gold via bullionvault??

Can you offset the costs involved in selling (e.g. bv's comission) against the capital gains?
Can you offset the storage costs charged by bullionvault against the capital gains?


That's probably enough questions for now! I've tried to find answers via the HMRC website but being quite a specific case it's not covered by any of their examples.



I don't know the answer for gold though need to as my gains over the past 12 months are approaching the limit on my gold holdings and all my other investments are shielded from capital gains, but my guess is that the share analogy is the correct one. I would suspect that the commission is deductible and I would expect something like the 30 day rule to hold. If anyone is a tax accountant or goes to speak to one about this, I would appreciate the answer being posted here too.


the_skeptic
Still don't have definite answers here but I'm fairly sure that Last In First Out will apply as gold at bullionvault seems to fit the description of a 'fungible' asset in tax terms.

The 30 day rule I think would apply if you bought back at bullionvault, however it looks like it would be ok to cover the period you are out by buying an etf or making a spread bet.
Fortune
Does the £9200 allowance still hold, post-budget?
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