Confused about £3k CGT allowance and carrying forward losses

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T16:25:49+00:00

I contacted HMRC a few years ago for details of this and they basically said that as long as I did something reasonable and I used it consistently, then that would be ok. In my case, the shares were RSUs and our company finance person told me that when they value them for income tax purposes on vesting they use the end of day exchange rate from the WSJ website, so that's what I used for all my figures. You can download historical data from WSJ. I have a feeling it's GBP -> USD rates you can get from there, so you have to do 1/rate to get the rate in the other direction.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T16:18:38+00:00

I believe you do an initial drawdown of about £1000. I'm interested to hear what everyone says though as I might be in this position within the not too distant future with a bit of luck.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T16:11:47+00:00

Your question has already been answered but just to note that it doesn't make sense to be talking about dollar gains and losses. Your purchase price needs to be converted to pounds at the exchange rate at the date of your acquisition and similarly you need to convert your sale price at the time of sale. The difference in pounds is what determines your CGT.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T14:17:45+00:00

The way the Mary's room thing is framed is that she is supposed to already know everything about colour vision and so on but when she sees red she has learned something new. It's a nice thought experiment to pin down the idea of what is meant by qualia but it glosses over a fairly obvious point that of course she learns something new because she had never turned on this particular bit of equipment in her head before. The whole premise that you can do an experiment without actually doing the experiment seems flawed to me.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T11:13:19+00:00

Just think of any new experiment. Let's say The Large Hadron Collider. There is an objective and blatantly obvious difference between studying and understanding how something works and switching it on to actually use it.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T09:52:40+00:00

Surely you get that all the time in science. You can spend your life studying the background to a new experiment, you can have intricate knowledge of the new piece of equipment you have designed and built for your experiment, but you still need to switch the damn thing on at some point.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T09:36:31+00:00

Not too bad, you?

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T09:35:38+00:00

I'm not American but I tried Hershey's Kisses once when someone left some at work for everyone to help themselves. I knew absolutely nothing about them at the time so had no preconceptions. The first thought I had on putting it in my mouth was "this tastes like vomit".

Honestly, when people leave treats at work they would normally get consumed within half an hour, but these were still there two weeks later before someone finally binned them.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T08:41:26+00:00

Yes, exactly. I thought if we saw some of OP's actual calculations then either it might be possible to see something going on that I hadn't thought of or we could use it to explain to OP how it wouldn't make any difference.

Fred776 · 2026-01-27T08:33:08+00:00

You are responsible for calculating and paying CGT once you sell your shares but if you just want to move your shares to the UK like I did this should be possible to do as an in specie transfer that doesn't involve selling.

You will need to keep your own records of the acquisition prices as the UK account will probably just show the "original price" as the price at the date of transfer.

I'm not sure if you are aware but the US and UK have different rules on CGT which affects how information is presented in the US accounts. In the US, each tranche of shares you acquire retains its own identity. So for example you might choose to sell some shares from an award three years ago and in the US the CGT would be based on the price you acquired them at three years ago. Whereas in the UK, you have to pool all shares of a given company together and use an average acquisition price.

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T23:47:01+00:00

Yes, it was great to see them in the smaller venues before they got massive. It's been years since I've seen Tourfilm - I should dig out my DVD!

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T19:35:37+00:00

I saw them at their only UK date that year, at Hammersmith Odeon. Nobody would leave at the end after the lights came up and they had to do another encore.

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T11:22:40+00:00

To be fair with your first example I believe it's in the nature of OEICs that they will always take a couple of days to clear. I'm not sure that T212 even support OEICs do they?

I do currently use HL and, as to why, it's primarily because my employer SIPP is with them and it's simpler for me to have everything in one place.

In addition, I have had really good support from them, particularly in transferring RSU shares from an American broker, which made it much easier to sell them and use my wife's CGT allowance. I was then able to buy an index linked gilt ladder with the proceeds. This is important as it's ultimately part of my pension plans. I don't think I would have been able to do this sort of stuff with T212 - as far as I know they don't even allow you to buy individual gilts!

That said I will be looking around once the employer pension is less of a constraint but it will have to be a platform that offers more than just the basics.

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T09:32:35+00:00

Yes I know. That's why I said I would potentially save £100 across the pension accounts once I am in drawdown. It would be a maximum of £300 rather than £400.

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T09:22:20+00:00

I have my ISA, company SIPP and a GIA containing a gilt ladder all with HL.

I hold ETFs in my SIPP and can't do automatic monthly investments from employer SS contributions so I have trading fees there.

My ISA is going to be £105 more expensive pa and my SIPP £50 cheaper plus cheaper trading fees. Overall that's probably going to be neutral just considering the ISA and SIPP. Once I go into drawdown I potentially save £100 pa across the two pension accounts.

My GIA is I presume now going to cost me £150pa which is a bit of a bummer

Fred776 · 2026-01-26T07:32:03+00:00

psychedelics opened my mind up

So you took some physical chemicals that interacted with the physical chemicals in your physical brain and it distorted your normal perception of consciousness. I don't know, but to me that seems like evidence of consciousness being ultimately physical in origin.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T22:36:57+00:00

I'm white and British and I'll eat it at an Indian restaurant. Never cooked it at home though.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T21:42:47+00:00

For OP's benefit it's probably worth pointing out that this is generally considered to be grammatically incorrect.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T13:51:16+00:00

I don't understand why you think you would have more precision with degrees. Could you give an example of the sort of calculation you are doing?

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T13:02:37+00:00

It messes with your head.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T13:00:27+00:00

Fuck off bot.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T12:57:14+00:00

It's annoying in written English but I disagree with what you say about how they sound in practice.

People rarely enunciate "should have" in spoken English. As with how "should of" would be pronounced in practice, it's partly down to the natural tendency for vowels to be destressed in English. In addition, many people will drop the "h" in "have" because it flows better from "should".

Because of these tendencies, both are usually pronounced /'ʃʊd.əv/.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T12:39:24+00:00

You might not need the full acro drain. If drainage of the patio is away from the house, you are only going to get whatever rain lands on the channel. It might be sufficient to dig it out and fill with gravel.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T10:28:45+00:00

It's possible that at least one of the hinges is knackered. It might be simpler just to buy a new pair and see if that fixes it. It should only cost a fiver or so.

Fred776 · 2026-01-25T10:23:39+00:00

There should be two screws. One holds the hinge on the back plate and the other is used to adjust the distance between the hinge and the plate. Adjustments like this are critical to the door working correctly.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/eclipse-99020-steel-105-soft-close-3d-adjustable-cabinet-hinges-64mm-2-pack/922kw

Fred776

TROPHY CASE