Is there a way to find out if I have already taken out an ISA this tax year using my allowance

SlyF0x

I appreciate this may sound like a daft question but I can't honestly remember if I took out an ISA this year or simply moved across previous years ISAs onto better rates with different providers. Is there any easy way of identifying whether I have used my allowance this year (maybe via national insurance number?). If not and I open a new one (and I had already opened one elsewhere) how long before i am informed that I could not have a new one and it is closed? 

eskbanker

The only easy way of ascertaining this is to use your own records, not just online banking for the relevant providers, but transaction logs since April for non-ISA accounts that could have been used for funding an ISA, and email or postal notifications of account openings, transfer requests, etc.

If you really have so many ISAs that you can't piece together whether any contain current year money then there's nothing else you can do at this stage, but this time next year you could probably find out from HMRC which providers submitted ISA returns and what they contained - however, this would obviously be too late to use any residual 2024/25 allowance!

You've always been allowed to open as many new ISAs as you wish, and the previous restriction about only being able to fund one (of each type) with new money in any tax year has now been removed, but you're still not allowed to exceed the aggregate £20K of new money into ISAs, so you could still pay some new money into another ISA if you're confident that doing so wouldn't breach that annual allowance.  Providers wouldn't have the ability to stop you doing so, although you might find yourself making a false declaration if you say you haven't paid into one when you have, but HMRC's compliance process will have sight of everything some time after the end of the tax year (and not before).

Ayr_Rage

All of my ISA accounts show either how much is remaining/used of this year's allowance.

vacheron

It's down to the individual to remeber now that multiple ISAs can be subscribed to in the same tax year. 

Many ISA providers will confidently state on your account page that you have £xxxxxx of unused ISA subscription available in this tax year, but this is only from their ISA records. My Barclays ISA's are confidently telling me that I have £20k remaining to subscribe in 24-25 which I most certainly don't!

wmb194

SlyF0x said:

I appreciate this may sound like a daft question but I can't honestly remember if I took out an ISA this year or simply moved across previous years ISAs onto better rates with different providers. Is there any easy way of identifying whether I have used my allowance this year (maybe via national insurance number?). If not and I open a new one (and I had already opened one elsewhere) how long before i am informed that I could not have a new one and it is closed? 

From which e.g., current account would the new subscriptions have come from? Can you glean something from its statements?

flaneurs_lobster

With new freedoms has come extra responsibilities.

Spreadsheets are your friends. 

XzavierWalnut

I have had a spreadsheet for years and had no problems when I put money in every every year. But when I stopped for a couple of years and then started again I got a bit mixed up and invested £20k twice in the current financial year.
I was not aware until a few days later when my second £20k was returned without any explanation.
I originally thought that I had filled in the online form incorrectly, but after checking realised what had happened.

NickBFS

I guess one way to do it would be to check all your open ISA accounts. If all of them say that you have a 20K allowance, this suggests that your allowance is unused. If some of them tell you that you are below 20K, add up all the allowance amounts that are short of  20K on those accounts and this will tell you how much of this year's allowance has been used up. The one thing not accounted for by this would be any ISA that you would have closed this year and to which you might have also contributed in this tax year. 

SlyF0x

Thanks guys- I can't work it out so I think I will try opening a new one and if there is an issue it will be returned to me unopened I presume (even if the ISA is with a different provider)

flaneurs_lobster

SlyF0x said:

Thanks guys- I can't work it out so I think I will try opening a new one and if there is an issue it will be returned to me unopened I presume (even if the ISA is with a different provider)

Don't think that's true of using a new, different provider. They simply wouldn't know your current savings position. You are likely to get a knock from HMRC sometime after the providers report your interest earned if you've overpaid. 

No idea what the sanction might be but will certainly not be less than the tax owed. 

eskbanker

SlyF0x said:

Thanks guys- I can't work it out so I think I will try opening a new one and if there is an issue it will be returned to me unopened I presume (even if the ISA is with a different provider)

As above, that won't happen but can you seriously not even identify which companies you have ISAs with?