The
Self Select ISA is a highly versatile tax-efficient savings account. ISA stands for Individual Savings Account.
You can use your self select ISA to invest in a wide range of different securities. These include stocks and shares, unit trusts and OEICs, investment trusts, exchange traded funds and commodities, bonds and bond funds.
The annual
self select ISA allowance is £7,200 in 2008/9, if you don’t use your ISA allowance each year you will lose it. The advantage of investing with a self select ISA is that your capital gains will be 100% tax-free – you don’t even have to declare investments held in an ISA on your tax return.
The disadvantage of this is that if your investments lose money you will not be able to set that capital loss against future capital gains to reduce your capital gains tax bill.
If you invest using a fund supermarket’s
self select ISA you will be normally able to move your money from one unit trust offered by the fund supermarket to another without paying exit fees to the fund manager, you may well also receive discounts on initial commission.
This can save you a fortune over the years. You can now invest up to £3,600 of your £7,200 self select ISA allowance in cash, instead of taking out a separate mini cash ISA.
The only thing better than successful stock market investing is successful tax-free stock market investing. Don’t waste your
self select ISA allowance this year.
