Transferring stock to a spouse

Does anyone have experience of transferring US stock to a UK brokerage account, before gifting the stock to a spouse for CGT management?

A bit of background; client is employed by Microsoft. He has c£300k of vested stock held in a US brokerage account. He's looking to sell the stock over time and wants to minimise CGT (income tax paid upfront, CGT due on any gain since vesting). Ideally, he can transfer stock --> spouse (using spousal gifting exemption) and allow her to sell the stock over several years at a lower CGT rate (she is a non-taxpayer, he is an additional rate taxpayer).

Comments

  • I don't have experience of transferring US stock to a UK brokerage but if selling down the stock is not time-sensitive, then Mr and Mrs could each use their annual exempt amounts (assuming they don't use this amount elsewhere) and sell down the stock over time - i.e. he doesn't need to transfer all the stock to her.

    Having said that, he's probably sitting on a pretty healthy gain right now so it will take some time!

    Also, if that £300k represents a v.high % of his wealth then he may be exposed to too much company-specific risk (even if Microsoft is a solid company). It might make sense to take some CGT hits if it's suitable to diversify more quickly. In the meantime he could look to ensure his other investments aren't strongly correlated with Mircrosoft.

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