More than one ISA?

pmoney

Hi, Im wondering if somebody could confirm something for me please..?

Am I right in understanding that you can open more than one ISA in a tax year as long as you dont save more than £3000 / now £3600 in ISA savings per year?

The reason I ask this is last year I updated my A&L Direct 2 to 3 to get the better rate of interest and I opened a Barclays Tax Beater; I only paid into the Barclays.

Now I have opened an A&L Direct 4 - transfering the money in my Direct 3 in. I want now to transfer the money from my Barlcays in but am worried there may be an issue that I opened two ISA accounts last year..?

Thanks in advance for any help!

:beer:

Paul

Lokolo

Not quite understand.

A&L 2, did this have money from previous tax year? And how did you transfer it to Direct 3?

As long as you only put money into Barclays its fine. Don't transfer using BACS or anything, fill in an ISA transfer form.

pmoney

My issue is that last year (07 - 08) I opened both an A&L Direct ISA 3 and a Barclays Tax Beater.

I paid my £3000 07 - 08 allowance into the Barclays, making no payments into the A&L 3 - only transfering in previous years ISA savings.

Now I have updated my A&L 3 to A&L 4 I am worried that if I try and transfer my 07 - 08 Barclays ISA in there may be problems..?

Thanks,

Paul

Lokolo

Ah ok got ya. No its fine. Basically you can open as many ISAs as you want but only contribute to one.

Example:

This tax year I open an Egg ISA, Barclays ISA and a NS&I ISA. I put £3600 in Barclays.

Thats fine.

I also can put £2000 in Egg ISA. Transfer it across to Barclays ISA. Put another £1600 in (making £3600). But this makes things all so complicated.

Just do not put money into 2 different ISAs (unless you do the above and transfer).

You are fine, don't worry

pmoney

See that is what I have read before but then on Martins main article on ISA's it says this:

Only one Cash ISA per year.

You can only have a Cash ISA with one provider in any tax year – you can't split it. However you can hold cash-ISAs from different years with different providers.

pmoney

Does anyone else have any opinions as to whether I am going to find myself in problems with this situation please?

Thanks,

Paul

Baldur

pmoney wrote: »

Does anyone else have any opinions as to whether I am going to find myself in problems with this situation please?

Transfers do not count as 'opening' a new ISA account, where no 'new money' is being paid in - I made a total of 5 Cash ISA transfers in the last tax year in addition to opening and paying my annual allowance into a new Cash ISA.

pmoney

Okay, thank you Lokolo and Baldur.

Paul