Threats to ISAs?

[Cotty]

Looks like Rachel Reeves is trying to poke her oar in again and wants to have a stab at ISAs.
Obviously the more money in one the less they can tax you.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/...

What do you think they will do, limit the amount we can pay into Cash ISAs from £20,000 to £10,000? Or even go as low as £5,000? Or how about reducing the lifetime limit, Torsten Bell suggests £100,000 cap and Reeves suggests £500,000.

[DodgyGeezer]

Great! Yet more attempts to screw-over ordinary people

[alscar]

Similar story to her first budget and in the end nothing whatsoever happened.
Bit different this time as seems various entities think it’s a good idea to reduce the Cash ISA ‘s but only to encourage saving into S and S ISA’s.
I think I recall reading that “ only “ 40% or so of savers even have a Cash ISA and the average balance is circa less than £15k in total.

[Bluevanman]

Just been on about it on BBC news, apparently Labour said they wouldn't touch ISAs for at least 5 years when they were campaigning

[jesusbuiltmycar]

Bluevanman said:

Just been on about it on BBC news, apparently Labour said they wouldn't touch ISAs for at least 5 years when they were campaigning

Labour said just about anything to get elected - anyone that actually believed their promises is a fking moron.

[okgo]

Wouldn’t bother me as I think UK are ridiculously pro cash savings.

But like the private school thing, what’s the point, barely anyone has enough money for messing about with ISA limits to be effective in anything.

[Cotty]

alscar said:

I think I recall reading that “ only “ 40% or so of savers even have a Cash ISA and the average balance is circa less than £15k in total.

From the linked story it says more than 22million Britons hold ISAs in total. The average holds £30,000, while the over-65s have £58,787.

[ChocolateFrog]

If they lowered the lifetime limit to £500k it would probably affect about 12 people.

Can't imagine many 'ordinary' people getting their knickers in too much of a twist over that one.

[Bluevanman]

Cotty said:

From the linked story it says more than 22million Britons hold ISAs in total. The average holds £30,000, while the over-65s have £58,787.

£285 billion in total in cash ISAs in year 22/23

Maybe Reeves would rather we spent this money and fuel inflation

Edited by Bluevanman on Tuesday 18th February 10:00

[alscar]

Cotty said:

alscar said:

I think I recall reading that “ only “ 40% or so of savers even have a Cash ISA and the average balance is circa less than £15k in total.

From the linked story it says more than 22million Britons hold ISAs in total. The average holds £30,000, while the over-65s have £58,787.

My bad then but still won’t make any difference in the real world if the total limits are reduced although paradoxically Rachel will probably do just that and then change something else that actually hurts.

[Austin Prefect]

ChocolateFrog said:

If they lowered the lifetime limit to £500k it would probably affect about 12 people.

Can't imagine many 'ordinary' people getting their knickers in too much of a twist over that one.

There are nearly 5000 people with upwards of £1M in ISA's.

[alscar]

Austin Prefect said:

There are nearly 5000 people with upwards of £1M in ISA's.

Is that in Cash ISA’s though ?

[borcy]

The isa yearly amount is set pretty high, but is it worth lowering it, will it bring anything useful in?
Will it have other long term negative effects?

Edited by borcy on Tuesday 18th February 11:04

[Greshamst]

I work for an asset managers, ourselves and other asset managers have been lobbying the government to encourage more people to invest in stocks and shares, rather than hold in cash.

The UK is very cash saving focussed compared to our cousins across the pond.

Supposedly this is to help people ‘unlock’ their cash savings and get a better return.
Just so happens to benefit us financially also. The building societies are not happy though obviously.

[bitchstewie]

I think I'd pay more attention to articles like this than I would The Express.

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/markets-insights/person...

As a small aside I had an email from Hargreaves Lansdown yesterday titled "Beat the Chancellor’s Cash ISA raid with one of the highest fixed rates" which I was surprised at as to me that seems a bit of an inflammatory suggestion that may panic some customers of a mainstream investment platform.

[Peterpetrole]

The normal argument against messing with ISAs would be that you discourage saving and have more (ordinary) people eventually reliant on the state pension / state funding of care homes etc. etc.

[Cotty]

bhstewie said:

I think I'd pay more attention to articles like this than I would The Express.

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/markets-insights/person...

Pretty much says the same thing. The government are looking to make changes but not sure if they actually will.

[Cotty]

Austin Prefect said:

ChocolateFrog said:

If they lowered the lifetime limit to £500k it would probably affect about 12 people.

Can't imagine many 'ordinary' people getting their knickers in too much of a twist over that one.

There are nearly 5000 people with upwards of £1M in ISA's.

and around 1.5 million people have ISAs worth more than £100,000

[Zigster]

Is there anything to back up the suggestion that Labour are planning on “attacking” ISAs? The Express isn’t generally known as a reliable source of news.

[troika]

If they reduce / abolish cash ISA’s, just use a s&s ISA wrapper and stick it in a money market fund instead.