Help To Save account and personal savings allowance

blagoslovljena

Does anyone know whether the savings bonuses in the government Help To Save account are counted as 'interest' for the purposes of the personal savings allowance? If I continue to pay into mine at the current rate I may well end up with two £600 bonuses paid to me in the next financial year, taking me over the £1000 tax free limit just with that one account!

Soconfused14

Technically it is a Bonus not interest. 

How will you get 2 £600 bonuses in same financial year?

As I understand it, you pay in for 2 years and at end of that you receive first bonus which is 50% of highest balance.
You then leave that in for a further 2 years and at the end of that time, you get a bonus of 50% of the highest increase in balance from the previous total. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

blagoslovljena said:

Does anyone know whether the savings bonuses in the government Help To Save account are counted as 'interest' for the purposes of the personal savings allowance? If I continue to pay into mine at the current rate I may well end up with two £600 bonuses paid to me in the next financial year, taking me over the £1000 tax free limit just with that one account!

There is no interest paid on Help to Save accounts.

The bonuses are not taxable according to LITRG (a normally reliable source).

blagoslovljena

Soconfused14 said:

Technically it is a Bonus not interest. 

How will you get 2 £600 bonuses in same financial year?

As I understand it, you pay in for 2 years and at end of that you receive first bonus which is 50% of highest balance.
You then leave that in for a further 2 years and at the end of that time, you get a bonus of 50% of the highest increase in balance from the previous total. 

My apologies, my brain wandered off for a minute. I forgot that the second bonus is from my husband's account - we opened them 6 months apart.

But I make a half decent income from bank switches too, so with a £600 bonus being quite a lot and switch bonuses having to be factored in (I've heard they count for personal allowance purposes too), I didn't want to end up in a pickle with HMRC.

As long as it's a bonus and not interest that's the main thing! 

blagoslovljena

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

blagoslovljena said:

Does anyone know whether the savings bonuses in the government Help To Save account are counted as 'interest' for the purposes of the personal savings allowance? If I continue to pay into mine at the current rate I may well end up with two £600 bonuses paid to me in the next financial year, taking me over the £1000 tax free limit just with that one account!

There is no interest paid on Help to Save accounts.

The bonuses are not taxable according to LITRG (a normally reliable source).

Thank you.

There didn't seem to be any readily available info on the government Help To Save webpage - the place I thought would be the most obvious place to put it!