New terms
Some terms in this section may be new to you. These words are in bold the first time they are used and are explained in Definitions.
While we have used the word ‘bought’ rather than ‘acquired’ in some of our examples, you may have acquired your shares or units without paying for them (for example, as a gift or through an inheritance or through the demutualisation of an insurance company such as AMP, IOOF or NRMA, or a demerger such as the demerger of BHP Steel Ltd (now known as BlueScope) from BHP Billiton Limited). If you acquired shares or units in any of these ways, you may be subject to capital gains tax (CGT) when you sell them or another CGT event happens.
Similarly, we sometimes refer to ‘selling’ shares or units although you may have disposed of them in some other way (for example, giving them away or transferring them to someone else). All of these methods of disposal are CGT events.