Help Needed - An index tracker Non-ISA CGT strategy

[tieresias]

Remember you need to declare sales if they are more than 4*allowance, even if no taxable gain/loss is made

Can anyone explain the purpose of such a declaration, since it doesn't impact the amount of CGT payable?

[Lootman]

Remember you need to declare sales if they are more than 4*allowance, even if no taxable gain/loss is made

Can anyone explain the purpose of such a declaration, since it doesn't impact the amount of CGT payable?

I cannot explain it although that is hardly unusual with tax rules. Perhaps HMRC thinks that such a volume of sales indicates an active trader whose activity should be looked at more closely?

I struggle to imagine that the penalty for not disclosing that is high, as long of course as no CGT is actually due. Seems more like a technicality to me that might rarely be enforced. Perhaps it is a throwback to a time when the CGT rules were different - in much the same way as you are theoretically supposed to report the date of acquisition, which has no relevance now that indexation has gone.