Alliance and leicester move goalposts

tosh

See "Sticky FAQ" at top of forum.

mr_fishbulb

tosh wrote:

See "Sticky FAQ" at top of forum.

How many ISAs can I open?

You can open and save in 1 Mini Cash ISA and 1 Mini Stocks & Shares ISA per year. Alternatively you can save in 1 Maxi ISA per year. You CANNOT save in both a Mini and Maxi ISA in the same year.

So can you open more than one but only save in one? It's a bit ambiguous.

mr_fishbulb

Had a read of Martin's Cash ISA Article

Only one mini-cash ISA per year. You can only have a Mini Cash ISA with one provider in any tax year – you can’t split it. However you can hold cash-ISAs from different years with different providers.

tosh

Sorry - I thought it was more clearly spelt out in the FAQ.

You can open as many isa accounts as you like but you may only FUND one each year.

Funding it could be by putting up to £3000 in and/ or by transferring from existing ISA(s).

For Example, I haven't used any of my cash ISA allowance yet this year so I could:
1) Put up to £3000 in my existing cash mini ISA - only have one with money in. They have automatically opened one for me for this year. (So have my previous provider, I think, even though I have transferred the money away from them.)

2) Open cash mini ISA with another provider and put up to £3000 in that - however, I would then be tied to that provider unless I transferred it ( and possibly the existing ISA) to yet another provider.

3) Open and invest up to £7000 in a maxi ISA (Stocks and shares) which would not affect my cash mini ISAs in any way but I wouldn't be able to invest in a cash mini ISA this year.

Hope this helps.

Tosh

mr_fishbulb

tosh wrote:

You can open as many isa accounts as you like but you may only FUND one each year.

So even though I had already opened and put £3000 into a cash ISA with the Halifax in tax year 2005-2006, I could have also opened an Alliance and Leicester cash ISA, also in 2005-2006 but waited until the current tax year to put money into it?

isasmurf

You can apply for a cash ISA in 2005-06 and wait until 2006-07 to put money in to it.

From ISA Managers guidance notes

This means applications may be accepted before the tax year in which subscriptions can be made. But the ISA is not opened, and the investor is not bound by the declaration, until a valid subscription is made.

mr_fishbulb

Cheers. Should have done that then for the A&L one. Nice to know for the future.

mary

Are you sure. I had my money in my Premier Direct Current Account on 5th April waiting and was ready to pounce on April 6th, when the money got transferred to the ISA Issue 2. My account no. begins 607...

steve_cov

Mine also starts 607- and qualifies for the bonus through to April 2007...

For the benefit of other posters earlier in the thread, perhaps it would be easiest to summarise as follows:

You can pay in no more than £3000 per year and you can transfer your ISA funds between providers as often as you like, but each year's funds must be kept together. Different years' ISAs can be spread around different providers.

masonic

steve_cov wrote:

but all your ISA funds must be kept together.

Really? I thought it was only your current years subscription that had to be kept in one place. In fact, I'm sure I've seen the option to do a partial transfer from another provider on the relevant forms.