Spread betting in uk

Beginner Questions
21

Guys…how many times are people going to argue this case. Spread betting in the UK is only tax free up to your own personal tax free allowance. No smoke and mirrors, period. You really need to understand the tax system before getting dragged into the false statements by brokers who don’t fully explain the tax implications of spread betting. After dealing with tax affairs I can categorically state that this is 100% true.

Also spread betting is not subject to capital gains tax as you are trading a derivative of the underlying financial, therefore you have no ‘ownership’ of the financial, and can’t make a Capital gain or loss.

22

Ive rang my local Tax office to clarify the situation on spread betting and they told me - currently spread betting is tax free and you don’t have to declare your profits no matter how much you win. There is a grey area which is if spread betting is your sole source of income but in most cases spreading betting profits are tax free. They also told me that the reason why HMRC is reluctant to classify anyone as a professional gambler is because they could claim back relief against losses from gambling and seeing that 90% of people lose gambling it wouldn’t be a wise taxation to do.

If your in doubt just ring your loacl office and ask the experts.

23

I do work in a tax office, :slight_smile:

Try calling the HMRC, the body who set the tax regulations, and not an accountants who will say almost anything to get your business.

Edit: Rather I did work in a tax office, not anymore…bored the hell out of me!

24

This is a useful little website on spread betting tax etc So is Spread Betting really tax-free?

I guess like anything to do with tax, it can be a grey area, and advertising to your tax authorities that you are indeed making alot of money from trading is your own decision. I believe Revenue and Customs class you as a professional speculator. Just debate with them what a professional is lol

25

I did ring HMRC and also been on their web site , that’s what they told me and what igindex just told me.
Like I’ve stated just ring then and ask.

26

Thats fair enough mate. People obviously all learn differently and i can see the beneift of having structured learning in the form of a course. Personally i would probably agree with the others in using the money for live trading. If you have been studying for over a year im sure you have a good understanding of the basics. I would set up a live account with £500, sticking to risk management rules and just trade!! I know it sounds easier than it is but if you stick to the basics like support/resistence, breakouts etc you may surprise yourself.
I think even if you lost 3 accounts of £500 you would of learnt so much more and would understand the physcology of trading which no course can teach you.
If you do take the plunge and do the course can you keep us all updayed as to how you get on with it? Thanks

27

Completely disagree Jezzode. As long as you have a UK spread betting account, all your revenue is exempt for tax as of 2012 (it may change, you never know). Feel free to pay tax, but I certainly don’t and never been asked to and reviewed this many times.

28

So I was wondering how about CFD trading for ETF’s ETC’s and forex income. Are these subject to capital gain tax if you are a full time trader and no any other sort of income.

29

I believe CFD trading is subject to capital gains tax but as I don’t trade them, don’t quote me on that.

30

Ok thank you very much indeed :slight_smile:

31

Personally, I started here, almost a year ago.
In between, I was trying to find my way really.

I wnet to couple of seminars from FXCM and knowledge to action. I like FXCM I have to say, I have a demo account with them for a year now, and a demo spread betting account on MT4 with them since when it started.

My comments on the FXCM spread betting plattform is that they have far too much problems on the execution.
For the last 3 weeks, I saw a shift in the quality of orders. I trade only on the hour, not below, and on timeframe H1, placing an order at the start of the hour is just impossible.
Error messages I have are: off quote / invalid parameters / not connected… I need to try for a good 20-30 seconds.

This doesn’t discourage me from using FXCM, but this is my feedback regarding FXCM and spread betting, as they have many other advantages.

My second point is regarding trading education.
I went to knowledge to action seminar. You hear a speech of 4 hours in an hotel of good reasons to go trading, and at the end, they tell you that you can access successful trading, you need to hurry as they have only few places remaining for their next session, so if you want to apply, you need to give a 500£ deposit right now, at the end of the seminar.

I was about to do that, but I used all my internal strengh possible I could have, to resist this and give it a thought.
I finally didn’t do this as you will learn that a successful trader is first of all a disciplined mind. The strategy you use is only a few % of your overall success.
Money management and psychology are at least 95% of your success, and not your pure technique. Now those guys with 2000£ will teach you the basics and possibly their technique.

However, this is not in a week end of training that you will learn how to have the correct mindset, as whoever you are, you need to rewire your brain to adapt to trading. And it takes a lot more than couple of days.

You need to work on yourself, and not on the chart, this is precisely why 95% of traders fail.
So I took 200 euros, tried one online training where I follow 2 sessions a day 5 days a week. And after 3 months, I’m just another trader, much better than before. I still have my personal internal issues, but as I said to another guy member of this group, I would rather give it a go to the online training with them for 2 years, than going on 1 week end with knowledge to action and paying the same price…

I don’t really want to sound like I’m advertising, as I’m just like you all guys, working out my way in this business, so if you are interested let me know, and you can see by yourself.