Readers’ forum: Now you see it...

I act on behalf of a client who is getting divorced and as part of the proceedings may have to transfer shares in his unquoted trading company to his spouse.

The capital gains tax exemption for transfers between spouses will not apply because they have been separated for a while. However I always thought that if the transfer was under a court order then holdover relief under TCGA 1992 s 165 could be claimed. This seemed to be the prevailing view and appeared to be accepted by HMRC’s Capital Gains Manual at CG67192 (now archived). This was based on the case of G v G [2002] EWHC 1339 (Fam).

However when I happened to recheck HMRC’s manual recently I found that it has been rewritten which gave me an unpleasant surprise. The manual at CG66886 now seems to say that HMRC...