§ Lord Terringtonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, bearing in mind that private investors have access to computers if only through the agents which such investors employ, they will reconsider their decision in the Finance Act 1983 to deny private investors the alternative method of calculating liability to capital gains tax now extended to institutional investors.
§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Cockfield)These provisions are designed to assist in those cases where computerised records have to be maintained of large share portfolios subject to rapid turnover, as is the case with certain institutional investors. Private investors do not generally face this problem and, in our view, would not welcome the necessity of making an irrevocable choice between the two methods of calculating their tax liability.