Neil MacGillivray: A tonic for the Covid-19 capital losses headache

Nobody likes to see the value of their investment portfolio fall. However, in every crisis there are opportunities, and I don't mean the ridiculous mark ups on hand sanitiser that we saw. When markets have fallen, taking the opportunity of crystallising capital losses to set off against future gains may help ease the pain a little once the markets recover. Most of us will be familiar with the basic rule that capital losses incurred in a tax year must be set off against any capital gains that arise in the same tax year. If the losses exceed the gains, then the excess loss can be carrie...