Capital Gain tax and Company secetaries

[vortex]

Quick question - My girlfriend is my company secretary, I am closing my company down so can I give her some of my profit so that I can use her Capital gain tax free allowance as well as mine.
Thanks

[Alfie]

Only if she's a shareholder. Makes no difference at all that she's your company secretary.

[vortex]

If I want to make her a shareholder is it an easy process and would it appear suspicous that I made her a shareholder before I stopped trading.

[Hex]

There are tax ramifications for transferring shares to someone else who is not your spouse.

[Alfie]

There are tax ramifications for transferring shares to someone else who is not your spouse.

Not if you gift them. Unless you're thinking about inheritance tax, being a spouse won't really matter one way or t'other.

You do run the risk of s660. If you're doing this purely to reduce your tax liability there's the chance HMRC would simply move the gain back to you and tax it as if it had been yours all along.

[ASB]

Not if you gift them. Unless you're thinking about inheritance tax, being a spouse won't really matter one way or t'other.

I am assuming the girlfriend is not a charity. There are therefore potential tax implications (over and above the IHT issues as a result of the pet). The disposal should be deemed to be at market value and any CGT paid accordingly, the acquisition would then also be considered to be at market value.

Of course the actual value of non quoted shares may be difficult to decide. However if this is a typical contracting company then valuing them at their share of retained assets would probably suffice. Any lower than that might just attract the attention of HMRC.

[THEPUMA]

But you can do a holdover relief claim to avoid any CGT assuming the shares qualify as business assets, which they should do.