What is your ISA Allowance?
An ISA (Individual Saving Account) is a tax-efficient way to save your hard earned cash. There are two types: cash ISAs (not offered by Skandia) and stocks and shares ISAs. Your ISA Allowance is the maximum amount you can pay into an ISA in any one tax-year.
What are the two different ISA allowances?
You can pay a maximum of £11,280 into ISAs over the course of the current tax year (6 April 2012 – 5 April 2013). This can made up of 100% into a stocks and shares ISA or up to a maximum of £5,640 into a cash ISA, with the balance into a stocks and shares ISA.
Each year you get a new ISA allowance, which rises year-on-year with inflation.
What are the benefits of using my ISA allowance?
The primary benefit of an ISA is that it’s a tax-efficient way to invest. There is no personal liability to tax on income or growth with your ISA and you don’t even have to declare it in your tax returns. In the medium to long term an ISA has the potential to provide attractive investment returns.
If you take advantage of investing your full allowance over a number of years, the tax savings on the amounts invested can be significant.
How can I make sure I’m getting the best return from my ISA allowance?
Any investment, including an ISA, is best made following sound financial advice. Skandia does not sell direct to the public as we believe that you will achieve the best results working in a partnership made up of you, your adviser and Skandia. We call this ‘Investing the Skandia way’.
Why use your ISA allowance with Skandia?
As a five star service provider, Skandia is proud to have won a number of industry awards, including the ‘highly commended’ award in the Best ISA Provider category*. As such, we offer a number of benefits as standard:
Choice
- With access to around 1,000 unit trusts and OEIC funds from more than 80 fund managers, you are able to spread and adapt your investments in line with your savings goals and attitude to risk. (For more on funds, see understanding investment funds.)
Flexibility
- Cash – in the whole or part of your ISA whenever you wish.
- Switch funds as you wish, currently free of any administration charge.
- Move any existing ISAs to us without any loss of tax benefits.
- Have easy access to your money through regular withdrawals or one-off payments.
*Investments, Life and Pensions Moneyfacts Awards, September 2009. Skandia was commended in both 2010 and 2011 in the same category.
Simplicity
- Skandia Investment Solutions, our market-leading investment platform, enables you to hold and manage all your fund-based investments within a single, consolidated portfolio.
- Keep track of all your investments with a single summary document, no matter how many funds you invest in.
You can find out more about Skandia’s stocks and shares ISAs or speak to your financial adviser who will be able to discuss your options and recommend investments to suit your needs. If you do not currently have a financial adviser use the links to the right to find a suitable independent financial adviser.