shares at loss on date of death

[mutantpoodle]

title asks the question

if shares are showing a loss at date of death but are still 'held' ie not sold
can that loss be offset against income?

I mean the value is 'established' at date of death for IHT purposes and any tax due is required to be paid
so presume a 'loss' can be claimed???

TIA

[Gengulphus]

Yes, basically assets that are still held on the date of death were never disposed of, so no gain or loss was ever realised on them. CGT applies only to realised gains and losses, and so the unrealised gains and losses at the date of death never come within the scope of CGT.

What happens instead is that the assets concerned shift into the estate's ownership, and the tax rules that apply to that are that the probate value (value on date of death) of the assets is taxable by IHT, and is the estate's base cost for CGT purposes. The estate later either disposes of the assets by selling them, in which case it realises a gain or loss from that base cost, or it 'assents' them to a beneficiary, which basically means that they're shifted on into the beneficiary's ownership as part of their inheritance, with the beneficiary taking over the estate's base cost.

Gengulphus

[GrahamPlatt]

What if an ISA is 'assented' - does the beneficiary retain the benefit of the ISA wrapper?

[swill453]

What if an ISA is 'assented' - does the beneficiary retain the benefit of the ISA wrapper?

Only if it's to a spouse/civil partner. And only indirectly.

See http://www.which.co.uk/money/savings-and-isas/isas/guides/cash-isas/can-you-inherit-an-isa

Scott.

[Gengulphus]

What if an ISA is 'assented' - does the beneficiary retain the benefit of the ISA wrapper?

A summary of the answer in that article is that no, the ISA wrapper dies with the person. BUT their spouse gets an additional ISA allowance equal to the probate value of the original ISA - and they can use that additional ISA allowance regardless of what happens to the assets in the original ISA.

Gengulphus