Taxation on Foreign Capital Gains from Share Transactions

Kinsailor

I have been a regular trader in dollar denominated shares in the US via a US trading house and wish to declare my gains/losses. The trading house provides a Gain/Loss summary for US tax purposes based on FIFO rules. For Irish revenue declaration purposes , will I have to go back and convert each individual transaction into its Euro purchase and sale equivalents to calculate a gain/loss on each transaction in Euro or will a conversion of the summary data be acceptable?

Thank you

(ps As A Non-Resident I am exempt from US tax)

NewApproach

Yes, you'll need to convert every transaction into Euro at the prevailing exchange rate at that date. This is because not only the share but also movements in foreign currency are subject to CGT.

Kinsailor

Thank you for the very clear response : given that I had 140 trades in 2013 I have a bit of work ahead of me ....

ixtlan

NewApproach is quite correct. However the Revenue itself uses monthly averages in some cases (for customs so I would deem applicable to other scenarios), so you may not have to use different rates for every transaction. http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/businesses/importing/exchange-rates/archive/index.html This may or may not benefit you, it should average out.

Ix.

Kinsailor

Thank you ixtlan for a insight I wasnt aware of : may reduce the work I have to do - I may ask revenue directly for an opinion

Marcusm

ixtlan wrote: »

NewApproach is quite correct. However the Revenue itself uses monthly averages in some cases (for customs so I would deem applicable to other scenarios), so you may not have to use different rates for every transaction. http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/businesses/importing/exchange-rates/archive/index.html This may or may not benefit you, it should average out.

Ix.

The use of monthly averages would not be acceptable for capital gains tax purposes where the individual transactions would need to be translated to EURO. The OP may find that he has taxable gains/allowable losses on transactions which made no gain/no loss in USD terms.

Kinsailor

Thank you very much Marcusm - Based on the advice here and from elsewhere on Boards.ie , I was able to download dollar denominated info for each transaction and by comnbining in Excel with a lookup table of exchange rates (from OANDA) I was able to convert each individual transaction into its user equivalent purchase cost / proceeds (at the appropriate dates) and determine the Euro Gain/Loss

Appreciate the advice you and colleagues give people on the site : of particular benefit as I wrap up my 2012 return before the 31st !

gggg

Just to jump in on this - do you have to pay CGT on gains on e.g. stocks traded in the US even if you dont bring back those monies to Ireland? I thought you were only liable when the proceeds were brought into the country where the seller is resident for tax/Revenue purposes.

Can someone please clarify in full for me?

thanks

namenotavailablE

Irish 'resident and ordinarily resident' individuals are liable on worldwide gains irrespective of whether or not the gains are remitted to Ireland.
The only exception I can think of (which leads to a postponement of the tax liability rather than a cancellation) is if you are unable to remit the proceeds due to currency controls/ limits placed by the banks/ government of the foreign country which mean that you can't remit the proceeds. there is also a facility to pay the tax by instalment where the sales proceeds are also payable by instalments.

See http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/cgt/faqs.html for more information.

gggg

Thanks for that.

Question 2.

If a husband and wife have a joint broker account can you realise gains of 1270 x2 in a given year before paying cgt?