ISA

[#1]

Time to get your ISA, you can now invest up to £20K from today, for tax free interest.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-4381744/Why-t-afford-miss-new-20k-Isa.html

[#2]

Waste of time.

The amount of interest is almost nil but the main question is who has £20,000 to invest ? millions of people are up to their neck in debt and many others have no more than a months savings equal to their month's wages.

Always made me laugh when I read ' If you invested £1,000 in 1950 in x company it would be worth a million today'

How many had a £1000 in 1950 which was the price of a semi we were still on ration books then.

Those who do have plenty of money are more likely to be looking at tax dodges, which give far better returns than any isa could.

@Infinity

The above comments are in no way meant to be critical of your post which is a correct statement of fact and is just my view of the current range of isas which I consider to be a waste of time.

[#3]

agreed - and for most people with modest saving the tax free interest allowance is more than enough given the lousy rate of interest we are seeing

[#4]

Even if I had that sort of money to invest it's not like a big government give away. Not with interest rates being so low.

[#5]

20k? Chance would be a fine thing.

[#6]

I MAY have that much next year, when my mortgage endowment comes out, however it is still only 66% of the mortgage!

[#7]

Sorry to hear that as I would have been in the same situation at seventy years old (which I am now) but chance and circumstance allowed me to retire mortgage free at the age of sixty.

Here's hoping they both come your way.

[#8]

I stopped bothering with ISA's when I moved. I was renting at the time and bought somewhere.

You make more money having an offset mortgage than you would having an ISA.

[#9]

For higher rate taxpayers ISA's can be advantageous...

- Higher-rate taxpayers over the PSA limit. For every £100 interest you earn in normal savings you only get £60, whereas in an ISA you get the whole £100. Therefore the normal savings rate would have to be 66% higher for it to beat a cash ISA.

- Top-rate taxpayers. For every £100 interest you earn in normal savings you only get £55, whereas in an ISA you get the whole £100. Therefore the normal savings rate would have to be 82% higher for it to beat a cash ISA.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/ISA-guide-savings-without-tax

[#10]

So in a nutshell..........

You don't pay tax on ISA's.

And the more the savings limit is raised the more the tax benefit pendulum swings towards the idle rich.

[#11]

Who says you have to be idle to be rich

All the research required to find the accounts with the best interest rates, and moving money from one account to another takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Made all the more difficult by having to have multiple accounts to ensure each does not exceed the FSCS compensation limit. Then there's the hidden accounts for anything beyond the inheritance tax threshold. Between all this and a full time job there's never any time for leisure or to spend hard-earned cash.

BTW is there an emoticon for 'tongue-in-cheek' ?

[#12]

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Infinity wrote:

For higher rate taxpayers ISA's can be advantageous...

- Higher-rate taxpayers over the PSA limit. For every £100 interest you earn in normal savings you only get £60, whereas in an ISA you get the whole £100. Therefore the normal savings rate would have to be 66% higher for it to beat a cash ISA.

- Top-rate taxpayers. For every £100 interest you earn in normal savings you only get £55, whereas in an ISA you get the whole £100. Therefore the normal savings rate would have to be 82% higher for it to beat a cash ISA.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/ISA-guide-savings-without-tax

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@Infinity    I think you might be barking up completely the wrong tree somehow!