Capital Gains tax

terencemc

Hey,
In 2008 my mother sold some shares and was liable for about 4500 euro tax.
Since then her new shares have depreciated quite significantly.
She got a letter today saying that this amount will be deducted from her widow's pension. Does anyone know any solutions to avoid paying this tax.
If she sells some of her shares now at a loss can she write this off against the tax despite the different financial years? Does the fact she's on widow pension entitle her to anything.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as always.
Cheers.

terencemc

Mr. Incognito

did she not pay the CGT when she sold the shares?

Why not? It's a 5th of the money received.

Losses can be crystalised to offset gains yes- but there is a daily rate of interest and penalties running.

The reason that you have so few replies is professionals generally don't get involved with outstanding libailities - it's messy and a lot of hassle.

terencemc

Well she submitted a tax return and now the revenue are looking for their money but as her stocks have nose dived in the mean time...I was looking for away of minimising the amount paid.
When you say losses can be "crystallised" to offset gains...could you expand on what is meant by crystallised.

Thanks for any help...I'm in oz at the moment and it's quite hard researching this in my lunch breaks !

swanvill

Hi,

My understanidng of using capital losses (excluding development land) is that you can offset them in the year or carry forward against future gains but never carry back.


You can find a good revenue guide (CGT1) at the following link

http://www.revenue.ie/revsearch/search.jsp