Who should use this guide?
Personal investors guide to capital gains tax 2024 explains the capital gains tax (CGT) consequences of:
- the sale or gift (or other disposal) of shares or units
- the receipt of distributions of capital gains from managed funds
- the receipt of non-assessable payments from companies or managed funds.
Use this guide if you are a personal investor who has made a capital gain or capital loss from shares, units or managed funds in 2023–24.
Who should not use this guide?
Don't use this guide if you:
- are an investor who is a foreign resident of Australia
- have gains or losses included as part of your income under other provisions of the tax law – for example, if you are carrying on a business of share trading, see Share investing versus share trading
- are a resident investor who
- had a period of non-residency after 8 May 2012, and
- had a CGT event that happened after 8 May 2012, and
- had a discount capital gain.
For more information, see CGT discount for foreign residents.
This guide doesn't explain more complex issues relating to shares (including employee shares), convertible notes and units. Nor does it apply to shares and units owned by companies, trusts and superannuation funds.
This guide doesn't cover your CGT consequences when you sell other assets such as:
- a rental property
- collectables (for example, jewellery, art, antiques and collections)
- assets for personal use (for example, a boat you use for recreation).
For more information, see Guide to capital gains tax 2024.
New terms
Some terms in this guide may be new to you. These words are in bold the first time they are used and are explained in Tax time 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), or the demerger of Endeavour Group Limited from Woolworths Group 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.
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