Isas help.

Photoframe55

I'm new to isas and cannot for some reason process it in my head. This £20,000? Limit? Does that mean that every person is only allowed a total of £20,000 in ISAs altogether?? So one person can't have £50,000 in total in either one or more different isa accounts?? Someone please explain. Thank you.

masonic

It's £20,000 per tax year.

sendu

You can add up to £20k new money across all of your ISA accounts each tax year.

If you added the full £20k in your first 2 years of using ISAs, the total held within all your ISA accounts would be £40k +/- any gains due to interest or investment returns/losses.

With most S&S ISAs at least, if you keep an ISA account over multiple years, it just looks like you have 1 account that you keep adding to, and so that single account could have £50k+ in it after 2+ years.

Photoframe55

Thanks. That's about the easiest way I've had of explaining it to me . So, can you lose money in all of the isas or just the stocks and shares isa? I've been trawling my way through all the info on this site but it doesn't register thanks.

Photoframe55

Hi. Thanks for that.

Photoframe55

Hi thanks for that Sendu.

eskbanker

debra5 wrote: »

Thanks. That's about the easiest way I've had of explaining it to me . So, can you lose money in all of the isas or just the stocks and shares isa? I've been trawling my way through all the info on this site but it doesn't register thanks.

Regardless of ISA status, there are essentially two different options for your money, i.e. capital-protected savings/deposit accounts and then investments (in shares, funds, bonds/gilts, P2P loans, properties, etc) where the capital isn't protected, but returns are often higher as a result of that risk.

In the specific context of ISAs, cash ISAs (including Help To Buy) and Lifetime ISAs (cash variant) entail full capital protection, but the other types don't.

This site has traditionally promoted ISAs quite heavily, and they can be advantageous to many, but before getting bogged down on the specific attributes of ISA types, it's probably best to have a decent idea of how much money you have, what you intend to use it for and when, etc, so that starting from that you can identify how best to meet your objectives....

Photoframe55

Hi eskbanker. Thanks so much for taking your time out to try to make things a bit clearer for me. So you can open an isa and top it up each year with another £20,000 then? So in say 3 years when you've put £60000 in, is the interest off the whole amount tax free then? And if its not a risk type isa, is it the same protection as in the banks etc of £85k limit? Thanks for your advice

eskbanker

debra5 wrote: »

Hi eskbanker. Thanks so much for taking your time out to try to make things a bit clearer for me. So you can open an isa and top it up each year with another £20,000 then? So in say 3 years when you've put £60000 in, is the interest off the whole amount tax free then? And if its not a risk type isa, is it the same protection as in the banks etc of £85k limit? Thanks for your advice

The answer to each of your questions is 'yes'!