Capital Gain Tax - Non business assets
Last week, the Chancellor announced details of his so called “Entrepreneurs’ Relief”, the replacement for taper relief, for business owners facing an increase of more than 80% from 6 April 2008.
It would be easy, given all the hype surrounding this new relief, to forget the position for people holding assets that would never have qualified as “business assets” and the 10% capital gains tax rate. By this, I mean assets such as shares in investment companies, residential “buy to let” properties and others not used in trading businesses.
In some respects, their position is more complicated, as the reduction in capital gains tax rates will be offset by the abolition of indexation allowance (the effect of inflation before 1998) and the decision as to the best time to sell may not be so obvious. It is certainly not as simple as saying that the headline rate falls to 18% so matters are automatically better after the changes come into force.
You may think it is now too late to sell before 6 April 2008 – but this is not necessarily the question that needs to be answered.
If you would like to discuss how the new rules might affect you and what you might be able to do to ameliorate any negative effects, please contact Cathy Corns or me.
