General isa inquiry

pistunbroke

my wife+ myself both have stocks+shares isas,just needed to know could we each open another isa while keeping the stocks+shares isa running, in effect having two isas each or do we have to add money to original isas + stay with one isa each. or can you open an extra isa yearly cheers .

Lokolo

Every tax year you get a choice. You can either put money into your existing one, or a new one.

If you have put money into this S&S ISA this tax year then you cannot put money into another one until April 6th.

angelique5

I recently bought my 1st cas isa and now someone is advising me to put a £100 a month into shares Isas . i have no idea if this is good advice and im guessing he will benefit in some way as he is advising me but is it worth doing?

Sanzai

angelique5 wrote: »

I recently bought my 1st cas isa and now someone is advising me to put a £100 a month into shares Isas . i have no idea if this is good advice and im guessing he will benefit in some way as he is advising me but is it worth doing?

If he is being hired as your adviser, he will certainly have a commission of sorts as a fee for the advice given. The stocks and shares ISA is a way of maximising your yearly ISA allowance, since you can put up to £7200 (or £10200 depending on age) into an S&S ISA each year minus any money that you have put into a cash ISA that year.

As for whether or not it is worth doing, you need to decide whether you are willing to tolerate 'risk' to the investment (since you can lose part or indeed all of your initial investment) and if you can afford to put money away like that. These accounts are best considered as long-term investments, because over long periods that stocks and shares have generally risen in value at a rate greater than savings accounts. There is a lot of background reading to be done if you want to get into the details of picking your investments yourself, but if you have neither the time nor inclination for that then it might be worthwhile paying a financial adviser to handle the specifics for you. However, you should go with an independent one (i.e. not tied to a particular bank/building society) if possible and remember that no-one is infallible. Going with an adviser does not make you immune to the inherent risk of this sort of investment, and your capital can still be lost.

Zeerust

angelique5 wrote: »

I recently bought my 1st cas isa and now someone is advising me to put a £100 a month into shares Isas . i have no idea if this is good advice and im guessing he will benefit in some way as he is advising me but is it worth doing?

I can see the benefit of a cash ISA ... there are usually no hidden charges.

That is not quite the same with a Stocks and Shares ISA ... you should ask why you are putting £100/month (= £1200/year) ... if it is to shelter from capital gains tax it does not really make sense as your annual CGT allowance is now £10100 ... yes your investment can increase in profit to over ten thousand pounds before you have to pay any tax and that's only if you sell it and convert it back to cash. So ask yourself why you would want a shares ISA with the extra management charges involved.

It does start to make sense if you intend to have a large fund ... £100k or so one day ... and it will form part of your retirement savings ... or if you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can shelter the extra tax on dividends ... or you all ready make use of the full CGT allowance.

The shares ISA is a tax free wrapper, you still have to choose an investment to go in it. I don't want to put you off it but you should ask why and what the extra charges are and are you making full use of the existing CGT allowance.

Zeerust

You are allowed £10100 gain (profit, sale of shares - original cost) before paying Capital Gains Tax (CGT). For example if you bought shares for £2,000 and sold for £12,000 you would have made a profit of £10,000 which is within the allowance so no tax to pay.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/RATES/cgt.htm#1