How capital gains tax operates after death — the probate-value uplift, the gains personal representatives and beneficiaries can realise, and the reliefs that soften them.
Death wipes the slate clean for CGT, but gains can still accrue during administration and beyond, and the rules differ depending on who makes the disposal. This chapter starts with the tax-free uplift on death and the base cost at which personal representatives and beneficiaries are deemed to acquire estate assets. It then works through when PRs face a CGT liability on sales to third parties, their entitlement to the annual exempt amount, the limited use of their losses, and the assets — such as cars and lower-value chattels — that escape the charge altogether. Finally it turns to the beneficiary's position on selling an inherited asset, and how a deed of variation can be 'read back' so a redirection of the estate avoids triggering CGT.
