MSE News: Martin Lewis: Is a Lifetime ISA win coming in the Budget?

eskbanker

newlease said:

LISA should be scrapped. It is counter productive. These campaigns do not support first time buyers only increases house prices. Those with LISA should be given the opportunity to transfer to another ISA and the "bonus" money should be used in a more targeted way.

Hence the budget and newsletter excerpts quoted above!  Did you contribute such thoughts to the parliamentary consultation about it earlier in the year?

Mistermeaner

Me and the missus have over 90k in Lisa’s purchased specifically as retirement vehicles in addition to pensions , they’ve been invested in a variety of share funds 

not sure it would be possible to give them back to us minus the bonus as how would you calculate that? Does the government just get the bonus in cash terms or the bonus plus growth ? 

If they want any of it back I would argue that we then missed out on other reliefs as we would have put that same money into our pension instead and enjoyed tax relief there but instead took the roughly equivalent benefit in the Lisa 

eskbanker

Mistermeaner said:

Me and the missus have over 90k in Lisa’s purchased specifically as retirement vehicles in addition to pensions , they’ve been invested in a variety of share funds 

not sure it would be possible to give them back to us minus the bonus as how would you calculate that? Does the government just get the bonus in cash terms or the bonus plus growth ? 

If they want any of it back I would argue that we then missed out on other reliefs as we would have put that same money into our pension instead and enjoyed tax relief there but instead took the roughly equivalent benefit in the Lisa 

I'm not aware of any credible suggestion that there'd be any attempt to recover bonuses, or even that there's any change at all planned for LISAs intended for retirement use - were you just reacting to the above poster's speculative musings?

Mistermeaner

eskbanker said:

Mistermeaner said:

Me and the missus have over 90k in Lisa’s purchased specifically as retirement vehicles in addition to pensions , they’ve been invested in a variety of share funds 

not sure it would be possible to give them back to us minus the bonus as how would you calculate that? Does the government just get the bonus in cash terms or the bonus plus growth ? 

If they want any of it back I would argue that we then missed out on other reliefs as we would have put that same money into our pension instead and enjoyed tax relief there but instead took the roughly equivalent benefit in the Lisa 

I'm not aware of any credible suggestion that there'd be any attempt to recover bonuses, or even that there's any change at all planned for LISAs intended for retirement use - were you just reacting to the above poster's speculative musings?

Yes 

more letters 

Alexland

SnowMan said:

From the HMRC Tax-free savings newsletter 19 - November 2025, published 27 November 2025

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-free-savings-newsletter-19/tax-free-savings-newsletter-19-november-2025

5. Lifetime ISA

The government will consult on introducing a new, first time buyer only product that will provide the bonus when a person uses it to buy a house, removing the need for a withdrawal charge and giving savers flexibility in case their circumstances change.

Sounds like they are re-inventing the HTB ISA.

I hope they give a few more tax years to earn LISA bonuses to get me to 50 then maybe they will scrap them and give investors a chance to move them into other ISA types as there would no longer be the moral hazard that we contributed knowing that early access would turn out to be available.

I don't actually need early access but it would be nice to avoid the duplication of platform fees especially as S&S ISAs can have no ongoing charge (iWeb etc). I worked out my 2017 LISA bonus (and all the growth on it) will have been spent on AJ Bell platform fees by the time I am 60.

clairec666

Mistermeaner said:

Me and the missus have over 90k in Lisa’s purchased specifically as retirement vehicles in addition to pensions , they’ve been invested in a variety of share funds 

not sure it would be possible to give them back to us minus the bonus as how would you calculate that? Does the government just get the bonus in cash terms or the bonus plus growth ? 

If they want any of it back I would argue that we then missed out on other reliefs as we would have put that same money into our pension instead and enjoyed tax relief there but instead took the roughly equivalent benefit in the Lisa 

Or you could have put the money in an ordinary cash ISA which generally offer better interest rates than LISAs (minus the government bonus). I've made a calculated decision about how much to put into my LISA, weighing up the benefits of the bonus vs the risk that I might need to withdraw the money early.