Tuesday 22 June 2010

A pain for AIM

Capital Gains Tax is a certain riser in the Budget today; much to our dismay. Capitalists are all in favour of employing capital to make more of the stuff - so taking chunks out to pay for Diversity assistants is not really the right answer.

That said, there is something in the overall concept of pain now, joy later and to get the feeling of 'we are all this together.'

For the London Stock Exchange, recently relegated from its own FTSE100 list, there is bad news. The much derided AIM market is a focus of many day traders and small investors looking to make a quick buck. By definition these are also people who will be paying the capital gains tax. You can't put AIM shares into ISA's.

So logic dictates the next few weeks are going to be a sad affair for many AIM companies - in fact, the more successful they have been, the worse they are going to do as people cash in their chips and invest in a more tax efficient product.

AIM has its critics for micro-companies ripping off investors and dodgy foreign companies getting a listing; but as the raw face of capitalism, it will take a hit. And for these Capitalists, this is a heavy price to pay for Labour's profligacy.

2 comments:

Budgie said...

For very small investors like myself, the £10.5k annual CGT limit is something I can only dream about. So it will depend what they do with the limit.

CityUnslicker said...

They left it...lukcy us. PLus as you can transfer shares to a spouse you could get to £21k before paying tax.

Now I just need to pick the right shares...