How to pay zero tax on £100k savings - even if you're a higher earner

Agreed, headline is not any reflection of the article content.


However, it is entirely possible to have S&S ISAs and pay no tax on any earnings from them on amounts substantially above £100k. Unlike cash ISAs they are still worthwhile and can use the same investments inside or outside the tax wrapper.
Also means you can still use your £500/£1000 interest allowance for the cash emergency funds in current accounts and regular savers.

Perhaps the Telegraph could run an article tomorrow helpfully advising people of another way to ensure they pay zero tax on [interest from] 100k of savings - put it in an account with an interest rate of 0%.

Havin't followed the link but those kind of articles always conveniently assume you have a non-earning spouse and have done absolutely nothing about tax-efficient saving at any time in the past.

A bit like the diet articles where they headline "ten simple swaps will lose you five stone in a year without you realising" and inside it's a list of things like "instead of having a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a 200g bar of Dairy Milk, why not try black coffee and an apple? CALORIE SAVING: 875 PER DAY"

In which case, my entry for the 2017 Stating The Bleeding Obvious Award (Sub-category: Pay No Tax On Your Savings in 2017/18) is as follows:
£15,240 into an ISA at 11:55pm on 5 April. Ditto wife.
£20k into an ISA at 12:05am on 6 April. Ditto wife.
(The headline for the above could be something like "how to shelter over £70k from the taxman in just ten minutes with this one clever trick", perhaps with a sub-heading like "Philip Hammond hates her - single Mom discovers simple way to get TAX FREE CASH")
The remaining £30k-ish into a variety of interest-paying current accounts (conveniently assuming this couple has one million available direct debits and so on) feeding in to a like amount of regular savers, all of which are opened on 7 April therefore not maturing until the following tax year. The interest earned this year in the current accounts will be covered by the exemption.

Or there's always the Keep It Simple, Stupid method: die on 5 April. Any Takers?

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

The amount of time ISAs have been around I suspect there are many people with substantially more than £100k in S&Ss ISAs, we probably have that much in lovely tax free capital gains. I hope there are not too many people with that much in cash ISAs which is the only type of ISA mentioned in the article.

Today they may have substantially more than £100k in an S&S ISA. But tomorrow or next month or next year they may not. Such is the nature of risky investments.

As you point out, stock markets have been very kind over the last few years. This might make some people twitchy. They may want to bank their gains. Funds can be transferred between S&S and cash ISAs, and back again if necessary, so I can imagine why some people might currently choose to have that much in cash ISAs.