Goverment tax on house sale

[The Chief]

This is on the behalf of a friend who's Grand mother is quite sick, i wont go into details for obvious reasons but i said i'd post it on here as there are some clever bods on here.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks for your time

anyway the post......


'What are the loons in charge of our country, charging in the way of tax on the sale of a second home. I've just sold a house, to pay for my grandmothers medical fees (she lives in Australia) as her scumbag sons and daughters wont do a thing for her. But the IR are'nt interested in that, so i have to pay tax on the sale, but can i claim for anything to try and claw some money back. Any help appreciated, iv'e tried so called pro's on the matter but they dont seem to know anymore than i do

'

 

[Kent Accountant]

Was the house ever her principal private residence?

 

[eggman08.2008]

Im no accountant , but I know that the amount of tax we get charged in this country is a scandal. It's sad to say but the inland revenue have no mercy when it comes money.
Tax these days makes it so hard to start a new business and to pay employees competative wages.
All's that I can say is best wishes mate

 

[GillespieBS]

Are you planning on using/spending the entire value of the house? Unless the tax laws have changed recently, I believe that if you reinvest the money on another business asset within a certain amount of time (18 months or 2 years - can't quite remember) you can get some tax relief.

i.e you sell the house for £200k making a £50k profit and hence pay tax on this profit. However you invest £100k in another house and therefore you only pay tax on the profit from the other £100k (in other words, you halve your tax bill)

 

[DFL]

There are all kinds of deductions available.

The gain will be calculated by not just the difference between the buying and the selling price but after possible deductions for acquisition costs, enhancement expenditure, selling costs, Principle Private Residence relief, lettings relief, taper relief etc etc.

There is also an annual exemption figure which currently stands at £9,600 - if your mate owns the property jointly with his wife then this is obviously doubled.

Give some more detail and we can go over the likely capital gains tax implications.