Stocks and shares ISAs, where are they?

ukflippy

I think there's some misunderstanding of what Soledad wants to achieve going on here - (s)he's not mentioned the April - July 2014 thing mentioned in the budget at all, merely that they've not used their entire 2013/14 allowance up yet, and that they have the funds to do so.

It seems to me a no-brainer to take out an S+S ISA in this situation, to use the last of the allowance up before the next financial year starts next month.

Archi Bald is right that there are fees to shift cash/assets between stocks and shares ISAs, so if you have time, look into which provider you'd actually want to stick with long term, but getting the cash into the ISA wrapper is key, assuming the plan is to fully use the entire 15k allowance next year.

Issues with what's happening in July only impact any decisions you make *after* April 6th.

jimjames

ukflippy wrote: »

I think there's some misunderstanding of what Soledad wants to achieve going on here - (s)he's not mentioned the April - July 2014 thing mentioned in the budget at all, merely that they've not used their entire 2013/14 allowance up yet, and that they have the funds to do so.

It seems to me a no-brainer to take out an S+S ISA in this situation, to use the last of the allowance up before the next financial year starts next month.

I think it is only a no brainer IF you intend and want to have a S&S ISA and buy funds or shares in it.

If you are purely taking out a S&S ISA to hold cash that can be moved into a cash NISA from July 2014 then I still think it is a completely illogical move and goes against everything on this site for saving money.

bowlhead99

jimjames wrote: »

If you are purely taking out a S&S ISA to hold cash that can be moved into a cash NISA from July 2014 then I still think it is a completely illogical move and goes against everything on this site for saving money.

I think it can be logical for a certain type of person and have added to the other thread. Planning for the long term often requires sacrifice of instant gratification. You can grab the extra hundred quid or two in the short term by using unwrapped accounts, but if you don't actually want the cash to spend right now and are going to reinvest your interest in your savings vehicle of choice, it's the long game that matters and IMHO the additional tax benefit will reap rewards over the course of that long game.

Generally I think we'll have to agree to differ; I can't put my money where my mouth is because I don't have any unused S&S allowance anyway

I do agree that it would seem bizarre for the type of person who could benefit from this scheme to actually want to do it. If someone only wants to grab the cash ISA wrapper and does not want to use S&S for its own characteristics despite having an excess of income, it is likely they are a cautious person. Intuitively a cautious person would be concerned for, rather than optimistic about, the future and would rather take the bird in the hand approach rather than relying on long term economics.

Soledad

Thanks to all of you, really, it's amazing how each of you has dealt with my question from a different angle, helping to put it in a bigger picture.

Yes, I do have £11k for 2013/2014 and £11K for 2014/2015 and I'm not after immediate gains. I just want to get to July having the opportunity to move all into a new cash ISA and top that up till the new allowance. So, yes, I'm not particularly interested in the S&S ISA, it's just that I wouldn't know another way to secure that all my 2013/2014 allowance is 'in' before the end of this financial year.