Claiming CGT loss help

[mikegolfbravo]

Hi,
On my 19/20 self assessment I claimed for a capital loss on shares and uploaded info supporting the claim but nothing about it was on any of the documents I got after that and I could never find out what was happening with it from my HMRC self assessment pages so have been trying to contact HMRC to ask about it for some months. I finally got through to someone with a heavy foreign accent and from what I could make out he seemed to be saying the claim for the loss had been allowed but he said something about I had to tell them how I wanted to use the loss and when I asked what that was all about he just said to look for HMRC document HS227, I think, I kept having to ask him to repeat things and he appeared to be getting annoyed about that and that was all I got.
After looking at that document and loads more I still did not have any clue about what I am supposed to do next, I had assumed it could just be used against taxation on any future capital gains and had come across a postal address for a capital gains deprtment so thought the easiest thing was just to write them a letter stating something like that but have not had any reply and still nothing about it on my HMRC self assessment pages.
So wondered if anyone might be able to explain any of this to me, after the events of recent months I could have made good use of the loss but as I can't get any reliable info about it I don't want to try using it and then end up with another tax bill.
I have looked at several posts in the CGT section but not found anything that seemed relevant.

[pawncob]

This will explain it all.
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg15800

[mikegolfbravo]

Thanks for that, that page never came up in any of the searches I did.
It's a pity they dont do a plain English version.
I noticed one bit saying "The deduction of an allowable loss from chargeable gains does not require a claim" so it sounds like the guy I was in contact with got it wrong when he said I had to tell them how I wanted to use the loss.

[bd6759]

If you make a loss you must make a claim. All that means is that you must tell HMRC that you have made the loss. Once you have done that the loss is available for you to deduct against any future gains. You do not need to make any further claims to do this. Remember, this is self-assessment. It’s your job to deduct losses from the gains, not HMRCs.

The HMRC chap might have been asking you if you were wanting to set the loss against income. This can be done in certain circumstances and involves making another claim.