Capital Gains Tax Guides

Capital gains tax catches people out because it is charged on the gain, not on the amount you receive, and because the rules for working out that gain differ depending on what you sold. Shares, property and crypto each follow their own path, and the ordering rules for matching disposals to acquisitions are not intuitive.

The basic shape is straightforward enough: work out the proceeds, subtract the allowable cost and any allowable expenses, subtract whatever annual exempt amount you still have available, and pay the applicable rate on what remains. Almost all of the difficulty sits inside “allowable cost”, which is where share pooling, part disposals, and improvement versus maintenance spending all live.

The rate you pay then depends on your income for the year, because the remaining gain is stacked on top of your income to decide whether it falls into the basic or higher band. That is why two people with an identical gain can owe very different amounts, and why timing a disposal across tax years is often the single largest lever available.