"Full transfers out for current tax year, partial for previous tax years" meaning

yourlocalcheesemonger

Looking at Plum's cash ISA T&Cs, it says:

"Only full transfers-out for the current tax year are accepted. Partial transfers-out are accepted for previous tax years."

What exactly does that mean?

Say I open up that ISA now and put in £5k, I assume it means that if I want to transfer some out later this tax year I have to transfer out the full £5k? I can't transfer out £2k for example. But then, say next tax year I added £10k to the same ISA, would that mean I could partial transfer out any thing between £1 and £5k, since £5k was what I paid in the previous tax year?

Thanks

eskbanker

Yes, the wording relates to the rules applicable up to last month, under which it was mandatory to keep all current year money (for a given ISA type) together in one account, whereas this restriction didn't apply for money contributed in previous years.

The rule has now been removed, but many providers still haven't reacted to this yet so if the ability to make a partial transfer of your current year money is likely to be important to you then choose your provider accordingly!

dunstonh

A lot of changes have happened at short notice and platforms/providers are really having a hard time of it in respect of their software.     So, leaving unimportant things in place until more important things are cleared up is common sense.

Kim_13

It’s as it says on the tin - the provider has chosen not to accommodate the new ISA freedom as regards to transfers, and will only accept a transfer of the whole ISA unless it is an old one (i.e. previous years’ subscriptions, in which case they offer the facility to transfer whatever you like.)

It does make me wonder where you have more than one current year Cash ISA though - if I transfer the full amount with a provider, it feels like I’m not doing a full transfer as I still have the other ISA. I couldn’t find anything in the guidance directing ISA managers to treat that situation as a full transfer; the provider won’t know about the other ISA, but it might mean another false declaration if the transfer form requires you to say that it is your full subscription for 24/25.

eskbanker

Kim_13 said:

It does make me wonder where you have more than one current year Cash ISA though - if I transfer the full amount with a provider, it feels like I’m not doing a full transfer as I still have the other ISA. I couldn’t find anything in the guidance directing ISA managers to treat that situation as a full transfer; the provider won’t know about the other ISA, but it might mean another false declaration if the transfer form requires you to say that it is your full subscription for 24/25.

I don't believe that wording would be used - ISA transfers are only framed in the context of what's being moved from the ceding provider, rather than across all providers, so a 'full transfer' will generally refer to the entire contents of an ISA, or if it's in the context of 'all current year money' then implicitly it's all current year money within the ceding ISA, rather than an entire year's worth of subscriptions if spread over multiple providers.