New to investment

Roselondon_2

I newly inherited about £100k from my parent. Never had any experience with investment before. Initially I was considering buy-to-let. Some helpful people on the forum advised me buy-to-let is not for people who are risk averse like me. Instead, investments like unit trust would be a low risk way to invest.

I did some quick research. Stock and Share via ISA only allows £20k a year and I just missed the opportunity for the financial year of 2020. So with £100k in hand, even if my husband and I open two separate ISA accounts, we would still have £60k in hand. 

Can someone kindly provide some quick advice what are other low risk options to invest? We have no intention to use the money in short/mid term, hopefully.

Do we just have to invest the rest of the money with tax to pay? My husband is on the higher tax band, whilst I'm currently not working after a year maternity leave and then being made redundant last year. Would it mean if the investment is under my name, it's likely we could avoid the tax implication to my husband from any investment profit?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

strawb_shortcake

I'd be inclined to max out Premium bonds, you and your Husband can have £50k each then take some time to research investing before jumping in too quickly.

MX5huggy

To get started your husband should contribute enough to a pension to get under the Higher Rate Tax threshold even if that means spending some of the money you will then avoid missing out on Child Benefit as well. Have you transferred your tax free allowance amount to him? https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/marriage-tax-allowance/

Then even if you have no income you can put £2880 in a pension which will be made up to £3600. 

£9000 could go in Junior ISA (can’t get it till they are 18, and it becomes theirs). 

Premium Bonds while you decide what to do and more ISA next year. 

george4064

What’s wrong with the other thread you created on 9th April which asks very similar questions?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6258369/new-to-investment-need-some-advice-on-a-general-investment-inclination

Roselondon_2

annabanana82 said:

I'd be inclined to max out Premium bonds, you and your Husband can have £50k each then take some time to research investing before jumping in too quickly.

Thanks for the tips. Will look up at the implication of premium bonds.

Roselondon_2

MX5huggy said:

To get started your husband should contribute enough to a pension to get under the Higher Rate Tax threshold even if that means spending some of the money you will then avoid missing out on Child Benefit as well. Have you transferred your tax free allowance amount to him? https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/marriage-tax-allowance/

Then even if you have no income you can put £2880 in a pension which will be made up to £3600. 

£9000 could go in Junior ISA (can’t get it till they are 18, and it becomes theirs). 

Premium Bonds while you decide what to do and more ISA next year. 

We did try to get his tax rate down by contributing more to the pension. But then he changed job and then the pandemic resulting in a salary cut. So the result is a bit muddled up and I can't be sure if we did the right number.

I did look up for allowance transfer before I started maternity leave. We are not eligible as he is higher tax payer. ("The other partner needs to be a basic 20% rate taxpayer (higher or additional-rate taxpayers aren't eligible for this allowance). This means you'd normally need to earn less than £50,270" )

Will consider Junior ISA. But once going in there, it would be locked under our son and can't move out again.

Yes, will look up for premium bonds as a possibility. Thank you for the tips!

Roselondon_2

george4064 said:

What’s wrong with the other thread you created on 9th April which asks very similar questions?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6258369/new-to-investment-need-some-advice-on-a-general-investment-inclination

I reached the end of that post as that was more for querying for buy-to-let. Thanks for pointing out though. I've changed the title of the other one to make it clear in case it's helpful to any others in future.

Eco_Miser

Roselondon_2 said:

I did some quick research. Stock and Share via ISA only allows £20k a year and I just missed the opportunity for the financial year of 2020. So with £100k in hand, even if my husband and I open two separate ISA accounts, we would still have £60k in hand. 

Can someone kindly provide some quick advice what are other low risk options to invest? We have no intention to use the money in short/mid term, hopefully.

Do we just have to invest the rest of the money with tax to pay? My husband is on the higher tax band, whilst I'm currently not working after a year maternity leave and then being made redundant last year. Would it mean if the investment is under my name, it's likely we could avoid the tax implication to my husband from any investment profit?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

You've already got good advice for alternatives, but yes, you would normally invest what can't go into an ISA into a GIA (General Investment Account) with the same broker/platform probably in the same funds , and each year sell £20k worth, move it to the ISA and rebuy. (Known as Bed & ISA. The platform may or may not have special cheaper procedure for this).

You can have £12,300 realised Capital Gains and £2000 plus any otherwise unused Personal Allowance in dividends before actually paying tax.

A reminder of the tax breaks available to people on low incomes: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78027795/#Comment_78027795

jimjames

The ISA amounts are per year so you can put £40k in between ytou this year and another £40k next year so that would only leave £20k for the year after or to do something else with.

kendizx9r

i have been using a broker to build up a portfolio of shares until it was a good time to cash in, i accumulated a good profit on some shares so decided it was the right time to sell, the shares were purchased using US dollars as it was a US company, i instructed the broker to sell them, once sold i was then sent an invoice to pay US taxes,this came as a shock because i was not informed prior to selling and to make matters worse the boker said i had to pay this bill upfront before the transfer agent would release funds into my bank account. , the broker said his company would help me by giving me half of the tax payment in credit and i would hopefully be able to borrow the other half and get paid out but after the payment went through i have since had no money deposited in my account i have since talked to the broker numerous times but he is making excuses saying he cannot get hold of the transfer agent to find out what is going on. this has been going on for the last five weeks without any positives.

kh

underground99

kendizx9r said:

, once sold i was then sent an invoice to pay US taxes,this came as a shock because i was not informed prior to selling and to make matters worse the boker said i had to pay this bill upfront before the transfer agent would release funds into my bank account. , the broker said his company would help me by giving me half of the tax payment in credit and i would hopefully be able to borrow the other half and get paid out but after the payment went through i have since had no money deposited in my account i have since talked to the broker numerous times but he is making excuses saying he cannot get hold of the transfer agent to find out what is going on. this has been going on for the last five weeks without any positives.

If your situation is genuine and you are not just trolling, you should start a new thread where others will see it.

Sounds like classic advance fee fraud. Scammer claims they have some cash or asset of yours which they will release if only you pay them some money. If they genuinely had your money and you had an obligation to pay them for a service or out-of-pocket expense, they could take it out of the funds that they are already holding to your account.

Then you say it sounds like a lot of money that you weren't expecting to pay, and magically they tell you they can halve the charge or cover some of it for you if only you send them the money, hoping that you will send them at least something that they can run off with. Surprise surprise, you send them some money and then there are 'difficulties' paying you out.

It sounds like you have not actually used a regulated stockbroker at all, but some scam outfit and both the money you originally paid to buy shares, and the later money you sent them for 'taxes' is long gone.

If that's the case, there's not much you can do but report to police/ Action Fraud, or hire a private detective and lawyer to chase them down. The latter would probably be prohibitively expensive.

If you think they are a genuine regulated stockbroker you could post the name and registration number of the company and their website, and people here may have heard of them.