Savings/investment questions - options?

bingobangobongo

I have now confused myself so lets see if someone can make sense of all this (to see what I can and can't do with my ISA)

- Golden CASH ISA opened in 2009/2010 (May 2009) with the amount allowed at the time (£3200 was it?)

- May 2010 the Golden ISA was transferred to Golden ISA issue 2, the whole balance was moved to issue 2 and then more money was added and the total balance became £5100. So this is 2010/2011 tax year.

So..as the money was transferred to a new ISA - does this mean that for issue 2, I could have added a lot more rather than just making it £5100?

I made the balance up to £5100 thinking that was the ISA limit, but because the money came from a previous year (2009/2010) could I have added more? i.e. can I still add more this 2010/2011 tax year?

Does this make sense?

jimjames

Before you decide to invest in a S&S ISA with Santander be very careful. They have a limited range of expensive, poorly performing funds and you will get a much better deal going elsewhere.

bingobangobongo

jimjames wrote: »

Before you decide to invest in a S&S ISA with Santander be very careful. They have a limited range of expensive, poorly performing funds and you will get a much better deal going elsewhere.

Thanks jimjames - care to elaborate on 'elsewhere'?

Thanks!

jimjames

bingobangobongo wrote: »

Thanks jimjames - care to elaborate on 'elsewhere'?

Thanks!

I use Hargreaves Lansdown and Best Invest. Others suggest iii.co.uk and there are also other companies that do similar.

You make your choice of the funds though but unlike Santander you don't pay for the privilege and can have (almost) the whole market to choose from.

bingobangobongo

Hmm I had a look there at Hargreaves Lansdown - I wouldn't even know where to start with all that!

Mikeyorks

bingobangobongo wrote: »

I made the balance up to £5100 thinking that was the ISA limit, but because the money came from a previous year (2009/2010) could I have added more? i.e. can I still add more this 2010/2011 tax year?

Does this make sense?

Makes sense. Yes - your allowance is £5100 from 6.4.10 until 5.4.11. Transfer in of previous year money doesn't count as contributions towards your allowance - so you have a further £3600 (?) available (the previous allowance was £3.6k so it sounds as though you've only added £1.5k?)

After 5.4.11 your allowance restarts and is £10680 for the year 11-12 ................... of which a maximum £5340 can be in cash.

Hmm I had a look there at Hargreaves Lansdown - I wouldn't even know where to start with all that!

..... which still makes it a better bet than Santander! Avoid their investment advice like the plague.
I moved out of cash some 18 months ago when interest rates bottomed. And made 58% in the first year. A lot of that was the benefit from recovering markets. But you can still beat cash returns comfortably. And most of the returns will either be covered by your S&S ISA wrapper or the £10,100 CGT allowance - you never use? Which makes it all tax free.

See an investment IFA if you don't trust your own research via HL or similar? But do not go back to Santander.

bingobangobongo

Thanks for this re the ISA.

I am getting some conflicting info though from Barclays. I went into the branch and asked if I hadn't used my allowance this year because most the money was transferred from last year.

She said that because the money was transferred from within the same branch to a new ISA - then it went towards my allowance and I had used it all up. She said if I had transferred it to a different bank altogether, then I wouldn't have used up my allowance and I could have added more.

Is she right?

dunstonh

She said that because the money was transferred from within the same branch to a new ISA - then it went towards my allowance and I had used it all up. She said if I had transferred it to a different bank altogether, then I wouldn't have used up my allowance and I could have added more.

IF you transfer an ISA, it does not use up any ISA allowance. If you pay fresh money into an ISA or withdraw the money from an ISA and try to pay it back into an ISA then it does go towards the annual allowance.

jimjames

bingobangobongo wrote: »

Thanks for this re the ISA.

I am getting some conflicting info though from Barclays. I went into the branch and asked if I hadn't used my allowance this year because most the money was transferred from last year.

She said that because the money was transferred from within the same branch to a new ISA - then it went towards my allowance and I had used it all up. She said if I had transferred it to a different bank altogether, then I wouldn't have used up my allowance and I could have added more.

Is she right?

It should make no difference whether the money transfers between branches or different organisations.

What may have happened (but certainly shouldn't without your knowledge) is that they closed your old account and took out a new one to put the money into. Maybe if the new account was only available for new money not transfers?

If your old account had more than £5100 in then the only way to get it all to the new account would be to transfer. If it was under £5100 then they could have closed it and used this year's allowance.

Either way it still means that you have £5100 remaining for the stocks & shares component of this years ISA (the total is £10200 of which £5100 can be cash).

EDIT - just re-read your original post, you say that you have already topped up this years cash allowance by £5100 so definitely would only have £5100 remaining that you can use for an investment ISA. As of April you can then start a new ISA with £10k totally in investments or split 50/50 in cash/shares as is possible this year.