How do I use untied for capital gains or losses? And what's a capital gain anyway?

untied Pro supports capital gains. It's a manual entry process (ie, you can't tag a transaction as a capital transaction).

You can find capital gains in the app by navigating to: Taxes > Prepare your Tax Return > Income Details > Capital Gains

In untied Pro in the browser, go to: Tax Forms > Schedule SA108 - Capital gains

What's a capital gain or loss?

If you buy something valuable (which could be property or an investment) and then sell it, you could make a profit or loss. The something valuable is a capital item. And the profit or loss is a capital gain or capital loss.

A capital item could be shares, a painting or a property (but not usually your main home). If it could be subject to capital gains tax, then it is called a chargeable asset.

It is not stuff that you buy and sell as your trade.

Do capital gains appear on my tax return?

There are lots of exemptions that mean that for most people capital gains won't appear on your tax return. For example, you won't need to declare capital gains if:

• you sold under £49,200 of chargeable assets in a year (2020/21 onwards)
• you made under £12,300 of profit (2020/21 onwards)

You won't be able to use untied if:

• gains cross from one period to another
• you want to claim capital gains reliefs including offsetting a loss

Also untied does not yet support carrying forward losses from one year to another.

• most personal possessions worth £6,000 or more, apart from your car
• property that’s not your main home
• your main home if you’ve let it out, used it for business or it’s very large
• shares that are not in an ISA or PEP
• business assets

What's this got to do with capital allowances?

A word to the wise. Don't get confused by the language.

For most of your assets, capital gains and capital allowances have nothing to do with each other.

Capital allowances relate to long term things used in a business, like plant and machinery and are a way of spreading the cost of the purchase for tax purposes. Come to the wrong place? Capital allowances are here.