Do those of you with shared household finances give shares to your spouse?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

If she's done it from day one then it's pretty much irrelevant - even if somehow HMRC argued that the shares were caught by the settlements legislation, you would be taxed on the value of the gift. Which if it's done at startup is nothing.

This is wrong. Whilst somewhat of a moot point in vwdan's case due to Arctic, if an arrangement *is* caught by the settlements legislation, it's not the value of the gift you are taxed on (and there is no tax on gifts between married couples), but all derived income from that gift (i.e. the dividends) that are taxed on the settlor.