helfordpirate wrote:Lootman wrote:Are you saying that the "true blended net per unit/share base cost" is something explicitly needed by HMRC? Or is that something you want for you own recordkeeping purposes?
No. Just that the concept of a pooled cost base seems to require a pooled incidental cost also. Suppose I have used different brokers with different trading costs or old-style brokers with % trading fees. How can I isolate a particular cost for acquiring a part of my pool? I cant. So I need to have a blended pooled acquisition cost. On the other hand I can isolate a specific cost for the sale of part of the pool.
As said earlier, it is surprising how quiet and non-prescriptive HMRC seem to be on all this...
But surely at the end of the day what HMRC wants to see and tax is your net gain. And that can be computed as the net proceeds minus the net cost. So the question is whether HMRC wants to see the way you compute those net costs and proceeds. And under a self-assessment regime I'd expect them to accept my net numbers knowing that they can always ask me to break them down if necessary.
So for example, when I buy I have a gross cost that includes commission and stamp duty, which I then deduct to determine the net cost. When I sell I have gross proceeds from which I can deduct the commission. I fail to see why HMRC thinks it needs that level of detail.
If there are multiple buys and sells, and the need to determine the average net cost, that still doesn't require a declaration of expenses. It merely requires me to compute the net cost for each lot, and then average them.