Exploring your ISA options

The end of the tax year on 5 April is fast approaching, so make sure you’ve made the most of your annual allowances before it’s too late. No matter what, why or how you want to save and invest, an Individual Savings Account (ISA) could help make your money work harder for you.

ISAs are tax-efficient wrappers. Every tax year, we each have an annual ISA allowance. If you don’t take full advantage of using all or part of it in one tax year, you cannot carry it over to the next.

There are various tax advantages to saving or investing through an ISA: you don’t pay Capital Gains Tax on any capital growth nor Income Tax on any income received, either as interest or dividends, from the investment or cash savings. Another advantage is that you don’t have to declare ISAs on your tax return.

Types of ISA and their allowances

There are currently six different types of ISA.

Cash ISA

Anyone over the age of 16 can put their cash savings into a Cash ISA.