‘Bed and breakfasting’, selling investments and buying them back immediately to crystallise a gain for tax purposes, was banned. But there’s a “new – and legal – way” to use the idea, as long as you “favour funds over individual shares”, says Richard Fletcher in The Sunday Telegraph. You sell your holding in a given fund and buy a different, but very similar fund, either leaving your money there, or switching back after the regulation 30 days. For those investing via an online platform, this should be quick and free.
Matched funds include Invesco Perpetual’s High Income and Income funds, both run by Neil Woodford; or First State’s Asia Pacific and Asia Pacific Leaders, both run by Angus Tulloch. The technique would also work well for FTSE 100 tracker funds or exchange-traded funds. Don’t be put off if your gains are under the annual exemption level (£10,600 for 2011/2012), says Adrian Shandley of Premier Wealth Management. If you don’t “farm the gain”, you could “build up such large gains that you could never realise them tax-free in your lifetime”.