ISA help

stoneroses89

I was hoping for some advice on two questions i have regarding my ISA's.

1) This year i have contributed 5k to my CASH ISA i have held with Santander for many years.
I also bought shares in an investment ISA for 6k with Hargreaves/Lansdown...Basically the question is am i able to use the remaining 4K to invest in another Bank/Shares provider?...as i have just read you can only invest in 1 shares/1 cash ISA per annum?...Is this correct?

2) Also i have a considerable amount held in my Santander Cash ISA from many years of contributing to it....just found out the interest is going to be cut to 1% next year....Was wondering if there may be a better option like...transfering the money into Stocks and shares bonds etc....is this allowed to be done from previous years ISA Savings? I.e be kept as ISA allownce?

Thanks for reading,

Help appreciated..

badger09

stoneroses89 wrote: »

I was hoping for some advice on two questions i have regarding my ISA's.

1) This year i have contributed 5k to my CASH ISA i have held with Santander for many years.
I also bought shares in an investment ISA for 6k with Hargreaves/Lansdown...Basically the question is am i able to use the remaining 4K to invest in another Bank/Shares provider?...as i have just read you can only invest in 1 shares/1 cash ISA per annum?...Is this correct?

2) Also i have a considerable amount held in my Santander Cash ISA from many years of contributing to it....just found out the interest is going to be cut to 1% next year....Was wondering if there may be a better option like...transfering the money into Stocks and shares bonds etc....is this allowed to be done from previous years ISA Savings? I.e be kept as ISA allownce?

Thanks for reading,

Help appreciated..

1) you can only pay the remaining £4k ISA allowance into either the cash ISA with Santander, or the S&S ISA with HL (or split it between them). You can't however pay into a cash or S&S ISA with a different provider until 6/4/15.

2) you can transfer all or part of your Santander cash ISA into your S&S ISA. To keep the tax free status, the transfer must be dealt with by the receiving ISA manager .

Archi_Bald

stoneroses89 wrote: »

...as i have just read you can only invest in 1 shares/1 cash ISA per annum?...Is this correct?

this is correct

stoneroses89 wrote: »

..transfering the money into Stocks and shares bonds etc....is this allowed to be done from previous years ISA Savings? I.e be kept as ISA allownce?

Yes it is - ask the S&S provider to transfer you cash ISA in, don't do it yourself

bowlhead99

1) You have already contributed to a cash isa and a s&S isa this year. You can't contribute to a third and keep the other two going. Instead, you can add another 4k to your HL account, or you can add another to your current year Santander cash ISA account (unless the cash ISA account was a fixed-term one that only allowed contributions for a limited period in exchange for a higher interest rate).

Alternatively you can move your current year money from Santander or HL to someone else and then add your 4k to it at the new place instead. But the £4k of 'new' current year money must stay with other current year cash all with one cash ISA provider OR with other current year S&S all with one S&S provider.

2) previous year ISAs you can do what you like with, you can transfer all or part of them out to a different provider and they don't need to stay with current year money. Your existing provider might not want the hassle of transferring out 'parts' of previous years ISAs so may not support it, but there is nothing in the HMRC rules that stop it. When you go to a new provider and say you want to transfer money from an old provider, they'll ask you to fill out the form to say whether it's current year contributions or prior year contributions or both.

So for example you could go to H/L or any other S&S provider and say you would like to transfer £3k from the 'previous years' part of your Santander cash ISA, and they will let you transfer that in, while your current year £5k at Santander can stay at Santander if you want it to.

Of course for number (2), whether switching your old cash ISA at a variable 1% into S&S ISAs which might gain 20% or lose 20% is better than keeping it where it is, is up to you... and likewise whether keeping it where it is at 1% is better than putting part of it into a high interest current at 3% or 4% or 5% is also up to you. Different people will have different circumstances and preferences.