Stocks and Shares ISA

A Stocks and shares ISA is a ‘wrapper’ that can be put around a wide range of different investment products to help mitigate tax.

Types of investment

Lots of different types of investment can be held in an ISA, including:

You’ll often find that Stocks and shares ISAs are sold and marketed as products in their own right

How Stocks and shares ISAs work

Your allowance is how much you can pay in, not the total value of your investments – so if you put your whole allowance in a Stocks and shares ISA and it falls in value you can’t top it up in the same tax year.

You can pay a total of £20,000 in 2022/2023 into ISAs. This is your ISA allowance and includes both your Stocks and shares ISA and your Cash ISA.

You can pay your whole allowance of £20,000 into a Stocks and Shares ISA.
Your yearly ISA allowance expires at the end of the tax year and any unused allowance will be lost. It can’t be rolled over to the following year.
You can choose between making a lump sum investment and/or making regular or ad hoc contributions throughout the tax year.
Any increase in value of the investments in your Stocks and shares ISA is free of Capital Gains Tax.
Apart from dividend income (paid with 10% tax already deducted which can’t be reclaimed), the rest of the income is tax-free – find out more in the later section on tax.
You can only pay into one Stocks and shares ISA in each tax year, but you can open a new ISA with a different provider each year if you want to. You don’t have to use the same provider for your Cash ISA, if you have one.

It’s worth shopping around to make sure you find an ISA that suits you. Compare any charges for the ISA wrapper and the range of investments you can put inside.

Levels and bases of reliefs from taxation are subject to change and their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor. The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount invested. These investments do not include the same secuirty of capital which is afforded with a deposit account.

Transferring ISAs

Should you wish to switch your current or previous year’s ISA provider to a different provider’s ISA while simultaneously keeping future tax benefits intact, you have to arrange for a transfer rather than selling and reinvesting.

All ISA providers have to allow transfers out, but they don’t have to allow transfers in.

You can transfer money from a Cash ISA to a Stocks and shares ISA but not the other way around. However, you can transfer money from one Stocks and shares ISA provider to another.

If you transfer an ISA that you have paid into during the current tax year to a new provider, you must transfer the whole balance. For ISAs from previous years, you can choose how much to transfer.

If you’d like to arrange a no-obligation meeting to discuss how we can help you please get in touch today, either by calling us on 01452 547783 or using our contact form.