Independent Investor

Although the budget did not raise Capital Gains Tax as much as was feared, it was still quite a large rise, and it can still affect people with large shareholdings.  This has made the spread betting look even more attractive due to its tax free status.
Unlike shares, futures or contracts for difference, spread betting gains are not taxed as capital gains.  This is because spread betting is seen as form of gambling as it is done in a closed network and the person who takes both sides of the bet …

With the current debate about the rise of Capital Gains Tax many people are looking at spread bets as a way of getting around capital gains tax while still being exposed to the share market.  Another area where both contracts for difference and spread bets really work well is with stamp duty.
Stamp Duty is charged at 0.5% for every transaction that is made.  This may not sound like an enormous amount of money when compared to the 18% Capital Gain Tax, particularly when this …

Britain’s new coalition government has found that the public finances to be an even bigger mess than they were warning the public about.  This has meant that they have had to look at new ways of raising taxes, and revenue raising measures will include some quite steep hikes to capital gains tax that will affect share dealing profits.  However spread betting may be a way around these costs.
The proposal on share dealing profits is a tax rise that has been put forward by the …

Contracts for difference are a futures contract and so they are taxed in quite a different way from many other investments.  Despite having a similar terminology and providers that spread betting has they are treated in quite a different way.
In the UK the government will not tax gains or losses made with gambling as gamblers tend to lose money on the whole and this would overall lower the tax take.  (Cars don’t count for capital gains for a similar reason in that they …