NS&I to shaft savers again. RPI to CPI (index linked bonds)

RG2015

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

Not sure if this is of help;... I don’t believe there is any ‘download’ facility as such but there is a ‘Print’ facility available within the current ‘valuation page’ for each individual ILS certificate.

If there is a print facility they may be able to print to pdf.

Andy_L

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Depends on the cost they have committed us to. I've heard stories about £100 to change a light bulb etc

yes, but those stories are basically a load of...bulbs.

it tends to be either a flat rate for small works, so you win on some & lose on others but it all comes out the same at the end but with a save on admin overheads.
Or its not just changing a 60w bulb on an angle-poise but a whole new luminaire & wiring or a specialist bulb (eg you can pay £100+ just for a projector or endoscope bulb).

ColdIron

They also have Sevice Level Agreements so you need a man with a ladder on call that can get there in an hour and a stockpile of a zillion different bulbs

nrsql

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

Not sure if this is of help;... I don’t believe there is any ‘download’ facility as such but there is a ‘Print’ facility available within the current ‘valuation page’ for each individual ILS certificate.

Thanks but the problem is that I don't want to do each one individually.
Guess I'll have to stick with the total.

Chris75

I don't know about downloading but you can certainly phone them & ask for a holders statement in the post.

londoninvestor

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

3) not undermining tax policy.

ILSCs are far more attractive to people in higher tax brackets. why? i can see no reason at all to offer tax-free products that are specific to NS&I (i am not referring to ISAs from NS&I - that is different, because other providers can offer ISAs).

Your idea makes a lot of sense in general. On this point though, one thing to think about is that index-linked gilts also provide a mostly tax-free return. The coupons are taxed as interest. But most of the return doesn't come from the coupon, it comes from the capital gain as the principal accretes with inflation - and gilts are exempt from CGT, so that gain is tax-free.

So currently, the tax "advantage" of ILSCs is really just that your 0.01% of interest is exempt from tax.

C_Mababejive

Economic wrote: »

You moan despite your savings being subsidised by taxpayers:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1723973/NSI-inflation-bonds-a-subsidy-for-the-rich.html
The government could save money by stopping the rollover of index-linked certificates and the BoE raising the money by issuing gilts.

We are digressing slightly but its all interesting stuff. The article says its a subsidy for the rich but what is rich? Who is rich? How much nett worth do you have to have to be considered rich? Its subjective. I'd say multimillionaires are rich.

The obvious question is,well if HMG could have done the above, why didnt they just do it instead of fishing for my promissory notes? There must have been an agenda??

Thrugelmir

C_Mababejive wrote: »

We are digressing slightly but its all interesting stuff. The article says its a subsidy for the rich but what is rich? Who is rich? How much nett worth do you have to have to be considered rich? Its subjective. I'd say multimillionaires are rich.

£2 billion wasn't an insignificant sum in 2011. To put that figure into perspective it amounts roughly to the net contribution to UK pension schemes on a monthly basis in 2018. Must have been some wealthy savers to find that amount of money.

short_butt_sweet

C_Mababejive wrote: »

We are digressing slightly but its all interesting stuff. The article says its a subsidy for the rich but what is rich? Who is rich? How much nett worth do you have to have to be considered rich? Its subjective. I'd say multimillionaires are rich.

well, nobody thinks they're rich. everybody thinks that being rich means having a bit more money than they do themselves. i read a post on another forum where somebody who had something like £5m thought that wealth taxes should perhaps apply to people with more than £5m.

however, offering a higher return than necessary on ILSCs (or via any other other product that you can only benefit from if you have some capital) does favour relatively richer people, in the sense that:

a) people with no capital at all can't benefit from it at all. and many people (in the UK) do have virtually no savings.

b) people with more capital can benefit from it more than people with less capital.

IMHO, it's not necessarily wrong to have any subsidies whatsoever that benefit people with some capital. but it's fair to ask: what is the purpose of the subsidy? who is it directed at? (it may be more defensible if it's directed at people who don't have much capital, or if there is a cap on how much capital a person can hold that will benefit from it.) what does it cost? and so on.

The obvious question is,well if HMG could have done the above, why didnt they just do it instead of fishing for my promissory notes? There must have been an agenda??

politics. people who hold lots of ILSCs are relatively rich, middle-class, old, and good at lobbying their MPs if something happens which they don't like.

a sudden change, such as ending rollover of ILSCs, tends to lead to a big wave of lobbying, which can result in the decision being overturned. it could also lead to anybody at NS&I who made such a decision getting into trouble with the government ministers (at the treasury) who oversee NS&I. i can totally understand why nobody at NS&I would stick their neck out like that. it's up to politicians to give a lead if they want a policy change.

short_butt_sweet

londoninvestor wrote: »

Your idea makes a lot of sense in general. On this point though, one thing to think about is that index-linked gilts also provide a mostly tax-free return. The coupons are taxed as interest. But most of the return doesn't come from the coupon, it comes from the capital gain as the principal accretes with inflation - and gilts are exempt from CGT, so that gain is tax-free.

So currently, the tax "advantage" of ILSCs is really just that your 0.01% of interest is exempt from tax.

interesting point.

the taxation of index-linked gilts is a perhaps a bit anomalous. i haven't really thought about whether or how it should be changed, though. (i'm not quite sure if index-linked corporate bonds are taxed the same way?)

a detail: with the current prices of index-linked gilts, you won't get all the index-linking tax-free, in that you will pay tax on the full coupon and then get a capital loss (perhaps not a loss in GBP, but a loss relative to RPI) which can't be offset against anything for tax purposes. and this is not always something that evens out over the lifetime of the gilt (i.e. if you bought at issue, you'd have a gain today, which will be given up again when it reaches maturity), because additional tranches of existing index-linked gilts have be sold at a long way above their face value.