Can I churn my ISA ?

0779mike

I'm not sure if I've titled this correctly but can I deposit and withdraw from my stocks and shares ISA as often as I like so long as I don't deposit a total of more than £20k in the tax year ?

masonic

If your ISA isn't flexible (and most S&S ISAs aren't) then the total you pay in (including what you withdraw and replace) cannot exceed £20k in a single tax year. If it is flexible, there is no limit to the number of times you could withdraw and replace the money.

wmb194

0779mike said:

I'm not sure if I've titled this correctly but can I deposit and withdraw from my stocks and shares ISA as often as I like so long as I don't deposit a total of more than £20k in the tax year?

Where do you hold this Isa? As Masonic writes, to do this it needs to be, "flexible."

Ones I know of that are flexible: CMC Invest, T212, IG, Barclays Smart Investor and Freetrade. 

Ones that aren't currently flexible: from a quick Google of a few of the bigger, older brokers; AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Halifax Share Dealing/iWeb, interactive investor.

0779mike

I'm with iWeb so the comments above indicate that I can deposit £1,000 now and withdraw it in a few weeks but then subsequently I can only deposit  a further £19,000 in this tax year ?

Or I could withdraw £20,000 now and then subsequently deposit up to £40,000 in the same tax year ?

Sorry If seem a bit slow.

ColdIron

0779mike said:

I'm with iWeb so the comments above indicate that I can deposit £1,000 now and withdraw it in a few weeks but then subsequently I can only deposit  a further £19,000 in this tax year ?

Yes

Or I could withdraw £20,000 now and then subsequently deposit up to £40,000 in the same tax year ?

Not with IWeb as they are not flexible. Most S&S ISAs are not flexible

Read this
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/flexible-isas/

Section62

0779mike said:

I'm with iWeb so the comments above indicate that I can deposit £1,000 now and withdraw it in a few weeks but then subsequently I can only deposit  a further £19,000 in this tax year ?

Worth noting that a S&S ISA is really intended for long-term investment, so putting £1000 in it now and withdrawing it again in a few weeks may mean the S&S product isn't really suitable for your needs.

However, as a workaround to the withdrawal issue, what you could do is arrange an ISA transfer from the S&S ISA to a flexible cash ISA and then withdraw the cash from the cash ISA.  But if you wanted to re-fund the S&S with the same money you'd need to pay it back into the (same) cash ISA and then arrange transfer it to the S&S ISA.

Unfortunately ISA transfers are not immediate, especially where a S&S ISA is involved, so even this workaround is not necessarily going to work if you need access to funds in your S&S ISA in a hurry.

clivep

Section62 said:

0779mike said:

I'm with iWeb so the comments above indicate that I can deposit £1,000 now and withdraw it in a few weeks but then subsequently I can only deposit  a further £19,000 in this tax year ?

Worth noting that a S&S ISA is really intended for long-term investment, so putting £1000 in it now and withdrawing it again in a few weeks may mean the S&S product isn't really suitable for your needs.

However, as a workaround to the withdrawal issue, what you could do is arrange an ISA transfer from the S&S ISA to a flexible cash ISA and then withdraw the cash from the cash ISA.  But if you wanted to re-fund the S&S with the same money you'd need to pay it back into the (same) cash ISA and then arrange transfer it to the S&S ISA.

Unfortunately ISA transfers are not immediate, especially where a S&S ISA is involved, so even this workaround is not necessarily going to work if you need access to funds in your S&S ISA in a hurry.

Section62 said:

0779mike said:

I'm with iWeb so the comments above indicate that I can deposit £1,000 now and withdraw it in a few weeks but then subsequently I can only deposit  a further £19,000 in this tax year ?

Worth noting that a S&S ISA is really intended for long-term investment, so putting £1000 in it now and withdrawing it again in a few weeks may mean the S&S product isn't really suitable for your needs.

However, as a workaround to the withdrawal issue, what you could do is arrange an ISA transfer from the S&S ISA to a flexible cash ISA and then withdraw the cash from the cash ISA.  But if you wanted to re-fund the S&S with the same money you'd need to pay it back into the (same) cash ISA and then arrange transfer it to the S&S ISA.

Unfortunately ISA transfers are not immediate, especially where a S&S ISA is involved, so even this workaround is not necessarily going to work if you need access to funds in your S&S ISA in a hurry.

We did this in late 2000 to ensure a house purchase went thru' as a cash purchaser before our old house was sold...

Sold all the shares in IWeb S&S.

Transferred the balances to Skipton BS cash ISAs (leaving the minimum in IWeb to keep a/cs open - think it was £50).

Withdrew cash from Skipton to fund house purchase.

Sold old house and put proceeds back into Skipton cash ISAs.

Transferred back to IWeb S&S ISAs.

Re-invested.

The tranfer from IWeb to Skipton went well.

The transfer from Skipton to IWeb in early 2021 was a nightmare...

After posting the transfer forms to IWeb, I realised they had the old address on them. I phoned IWeb and updated our address and asked about the forms in the post. They said it wasn't a problem and no need to re-submit the forms - WRONG. About 5 weeks later Skipton rejected the forms and I had to re-submit new ones. These were eventually processed but Skipton sent my balance to my wife's IWeb a/c. On noticing this I managed to stop them sending my wife's Skipton balance to my IWeb a/c. They then needed to get my balance back from IWeb before starting the transfer again.

In total the transfer back to IWeb took just under 3 months during which time the stockmarket was rocketing. We received some compensation from IWeb and Skipton but nowhere near the £1000s we had lost from being out of the market.