Time for some spring cleaning

With just over a month until the end of the 2017/18 tax year, it’s time to make the most of your annual ISA allowance, for this year and the next.

ISAs are exempt from income tax and capital gains tax on returns, and you don’t pay any tax on any money you withdraw. This makes them very attractive, but because of these tax benefits, the Government limits how much money you can put in each tax year.

For 2017/18 and 2018/19 the overall ISA allowance is £20,000.

Investors do not pay any personal tax on income or gains, but ISAs do pay unrecoverable tax on income from stocks and shares received by the ISA managers.

Don’t miss the deadline

You cannot carry your ISA allowance over between tax years, so you must use it before midnight April 5th each year. But remember, you could put £20,000 in your ISA to use this year’s allowance before the deadline, and another £20,000 on April 6th. You can split your allowance across a Stocks and Shares ISA, Cash ISA, Lifetime ISA