S&S ISA Transfer Question

Penguintron

I opened a stocks and shares index tracker ISA earlier on in the year and made some payments into it. Unfortunately I had to withdraw the money due to a financial emergency (wife crashed her car and I had to buy her a new one) so now it is sitting empty. I want to try my hand with choosing my own shares so I need to transfer it to a new provider but if it's empty do I still need to fill in all of the paperwork to do so or can I just open a new one?

I think I'll need to transfer as I would be contributing to a new ISA in effect but feel unsure about transferring an "empty" account. Can anybody advise me on this?

Thanks

Ian_W

Hmmm. Interesting one which I'm not certain of the answer.
However, when you say "earlier on in the year" do you mean the calendar year or tax year ie.since 6/4/08?
If you haven't paid in since 6/4/08 then you can just open a new ISA as the other is a previous year one - you can disregard it. If you have paid in since then I'm not sure but the principle is than you can only have one "active" ISA at once. My guess is if you simply close the empty one you can then open and fund another.
You should remember though that your allowance of £7200 is reduced by anything paid into the 1st ISA in this tax year as the allowance doesn't "reset" if you take money out.
It would seem rather stupid to invoke transfers on accounts with zero balance but stranger things have happened at sea!!

Penguintron

Thanks for your reply :T

I have paid into is this year because my direct debit that was drip feeding it from my bank account rolled over and a couple of payments were made into it this year. Just seems a bit daft transferring an empty account but I think it would need to be done otherwise if I closed it I believe I would lose that entitlement for this tax year. I think the best course of action would be for me to speak to the people that I want to transfer to and ask their advice.