Multiple ISA contributions

JohnRo

Sorry if this has been asked or answered recently, I just hope someone can give a quick confirmation of whether it is possible to make contributions into more than one S&S ISA account in any one year.

Quick example of what I'm describing (11K annual allowance)

year 1 - open new S&S ISA (A) and contribute 11K
year 2 - open new S&S ISA (B) and contribute 8K
year 2 - also contribute 3K into old S&S ISA (A)
year 3 - open new S&S ISA (C) and contribute 8K
year 3 - also contribute 2K into old S&S ISA (A)
year 3 - also contribute 1K into old S&S ISA (B) etc...

is this sort of annual ISA allowance usage allowed?

Stompa

JohnRo wrote: »

...whether it is possible to make contributions into more than one S&S ISA account in any one year.

No.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/isa/faqs.htm#8

Q. How many ISAs can I have?
A. There are limits on the number of ISA accounts you can subscribe to each tax year. You can only put money into one cash ISA and one stocks and shares ISA.
But in different years, you could choose to save with different managers. There are no limits on the number of different ISAs you can hold over time.

psychic_teabag

One thing you could do, which would end up with the same mix, would be

year 1 - open new S&S ISA (A) and contribute 11K

year 2 - transfer 8K (old money) from A into a new ISA (B)
year 2 - contribute 11K (new money) into (A) => balance of 14K

year 3 - transfer 8K (old money) from A to new S&S ISA (C)
year 3 - transfer 1K (old money) from A to B => balance of 9K
year 3 - contribute 11K (new money) into (A) => balance of, erm..., 16K

innovate

Worth considering the costs involved in transferring S&S ISAs.

I believe it involves selling your existing "S&Ss", and re-investing. If done in a very short period of time, this will invariably result in a loss, if only because of the dealing costs, but probably also because of the difference between selling and buying costs . Thus it is questionable why you would want to do any of this

JohnRo

cheers teabag - looks like you might just have solved the conundrum. Will have to give it some thought as the invested funds would be incompatible and I don't really want to introduce any extra costs if possible.

For those wondering why the heck.... it's a way to wrap inheritance money separately within separate ISAs I'm looking for. Primarily for easy accounting and admin purposes but also ensuring that I retain control.

The reasons behind wanting to do this are complicated and not for this thread but it's just the mechanics of such things I was interested in.

thanks again

innovate

JohnRo wrote: »

.............. it's just the mechanics of such things I was interested in................

In case you were wondering: you can only transfer an ISA in the name of person A to an ISA in the name of person A. You cannot transfer an ISA from person A to person B.

JohnRo

Yes thanks, all the ISA accounts will belong to me and be in my name. It is just for accounting purposes and managing the contributions that I'm after the splitting of the ISA wrapped money. It's a three way split I'm aiming for with ISA (A) being "mine" and ISA (B) and (C) being "theirs" as above the latter pair being identical in terms of account balance and investments held.

I've got while April to try and figure something out

psychic_teabag

innovate wrote: »

Worth considering the costs involved in transferring S&S ISAs.

I believe it involves selling your existing "S&Ss", and re-investing. If done in a very short period of time, this will invariably result in a loss, if only because of the dealing costs, but probably also because of the difference between selling and buying costs . Thus it is questionable why you would want to do any of this

Sometimes you can transfer as stock rather than selling up and transferring as cash. (Though HL for example charge extra to transfer as stock.)

But don't forget there will be lots of new cash sitting in account A. I don't know how exactly the rules work : don't know if you can deposit £11K of new money, and then immediately do a transfer of cash as old allowance.

Oh - I was just about to say that they can't track which money is new and which is old, but come to think of it, Fidelity seem to make a new sub-account for each year's allocation. So with them, you really would have to find a way to buy something with the new money and sell some of the old stuff. Could probably do it on the same day, so there needn't be any time out of the market, but there may be a switching fee / initial fee or something.

But other places such as HL keep all the money in a single account.

If it's just for accounting purposes, could you for example set up virtual portfolios elsewhere (I use trustnet) to track sub-portfolios separately ?

innovate

JohnRo wrote: »

Yes thanks, all the ISA accounts will belong to me and be in my name. It is just for accounting purposes and managing the contributions that I'm after the splitting of the ISA wrapped money. It's a three way split I'm aiming for with ISA (A) being "mine" and ISA (B) and (C) being "theirs" as above the latter pair being identical in terms of account balance and investments held.

I've got while April to try and figure something out

Sounds all terribly complicated. You would probably do best consulting an accountant.

As a general observation: in ISA terms, there is no "mine" and "theirs" - -- the "I" in ISA stands for "individual", and there is no concept of transferring any ISA money from one individual to another.

JohnRo

Virtual is no problem, certainly the easiest by far. I just thought actual separate accounts would be a cleaner, better way of managing the accounts but the obstacles to such things seem to make that extremely unlikely.

The thing with virtual portfolios is that I've already noticed getting trustnet to tally exactly with the actual account balance of components and total is proving tricky. It may just be rounding errors due to a decimal place missing, some other rounding error or pricing discrepancies. It's certainly close but not ever exact and even though it's only my OCD kicking in that still grates on me.

psychic_teabag

Another thing to bear in mind is that the RDR and all that stuff, annual charges might become the norm. Three accounts means three annual charges.