Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people received relief for trading losses against capital gains in (a) 2015-16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017-18.

There were 2,950 individuals who set in-year trading losses against capital gains in their Self Assessment (SA) returns for the 2015-16 tax year.

Individuals are able to offset some trading losses from the previous tax year against in-year capital gains. The SA return, however, does not separately capture this information from non-trading losses, and so this is not included in the figures given in this answer.

The deadline for filing all SA returns for the 2016-17 tax year was 31 January 2018. We are currently waiting for any late returns and are completing quality assurance checks on the data.

The deadline for filing all SA returns for the 2017-18 tax year will be 31 January 2019. Consequently, this information is not yet available.