The Lemon Fool

I file my self-assessment on line. Usually I have two or three disposals in the CGT section.

This year I am likely to sell a number of investments and I seem to recall there is a limit to how many disposals the on-line system can accept.

Does anyone know the maximum number? If I exceed the maximum, is the only alternative to file a paper copy of the whole return?

I do not know of any limit. I have had at least 10 more than once over the past 10 years.

You can just enter the totals and attach a pdf computation.

Gersemi wrote:You can just enter the totals and attach a pdf computation.

If you can get it to work.

The last time I did a tax return ( a couple of years ago and entirely because of CGT) the system refused to accept a pdf attachment - no idea why and HMRC when I phoned couldn't solve it. I didn't use the CGT computation pages as the companies I was selling were not bought in a single purchase and were not sold in their entirety at a single point which the return said was necessary to use the computation pages. So I prepared a nice pdf with it all set out, entered the totals in the relevant boxes and then the pdf failed to upload. In the end I entered the details into the comments box, which was a complete pain to do, but was accepted by HMRC.

daveh wrote:

Gersemi wrote:You can just enter the totals and attach a pdf computation.

If you can get it to work.

The last time I did a tax return ( a couple of years ago and entirely because of CGT) the system refused to accept a pdf attachment - no idea why and HMRC when I phoned couldn't solve it. I didn't use the CGT computation pages as the companies I was selling were not bought in a single purchase and were not sold in their entirety at a single point which the return said was necessary to use the computation pages. So I prepared a nice pdf with it all set out, entered the totals in the relevant boxes and then the pdf failed to upload. In the end I entered the details into the comments box, which was a complete pain to do, but was accepted by HMRC.

Last time I had problems uploading a pdf to my tax return (many years ago) it was because it would not accept any document that contained anything other than pure letters and numbers both in the filename and in the pdf (pound signs upset it as I recall!). Hasn't been a problem since using Taxcalc as that does it all automatically.

scrumpyjack wrote:

daveh wrote: If you can get it to work.

The last time I did a tax return ( a couple of years ago and entirely because of CGT) the system refused to accept a pdf attachment - no idea why and HMRC when I phoned couldn't solve it. I didn't use the CGT computation pages as the companies I was selling were not bought in a single purchase and were not sold in their entirety at a single point which the return said was necessary to use the computation pages. So I prepared a nice pdf with it all set out, entered the totals in the relevant boxes and then the pdf failed to upload. In the end I entered the details into the comments box, which was a complete pain to do, but was accepted by HMRC.

Last time I had problems uploading a pdf to my tax return (many years ago) it was because it would not accept any document that contained anything other than pure letters and numbers both in the filename and in the pdf (pound signs upset it as I recall!). Hasn't been a problem since using Taxcalc as that does it all automatically.

Yes, if I recall correctly that was one of the suggestions from the HMRC when I phoned them. I thought I'd removed all the non-text characters from both the filename and within the pdf, but I may be misremembering the problem and of course I may have missed a non text character somewhere in the pdf.

I did that years tax return and the year afters and then HMRC told me I didn't need to do one for this year (21/22) and on. I'm hoping that will continue unless or until I make a large capital gain from some shares held outside ISAs.

daveh wrote:I didn't use the CGT computation pages as the companies I was selling were not bought in a single purchase and were not sold in their entirety at a single point which the return said was necessary to use the computation pages.

In that situation, I use a computation page for each sale with the date of the first purchase for all of them, taking the price and capital gain data from the Meridian Investor 3 report, which does the calcs instantly. Never had any problem with HMRC.

Nocton wrote:

daveh wrote:I didn't use the CGT computation pages as the companies I was selling were not bought in a single purchase and were not sold in their entirety at a single point which the return said was necessary to use the computation pages.

In that situation, I use a computation page for each sale with the date of the first purchase for all of them, taking the price and capital gain data from the Meridian Investor 3 report, which does the calcs instantly. Never had any problem with HMRC.

The date of first purchase, or for that matter the date of any purchase, is not required. I know the form asks for it, but if you leave it blank it is accepted. If you think about it, it never affects the computation, which is presumably why it is ignored if you provide it.

Minimally you only need to report the date of disposal, the cost basis and the net proceeds. And a description of the item of course.