Chancellor urged to simplify ISAs
The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA) is calling for ISAs to be simplified so they are more flexible for consumers.
Everyone has a £20,000 ISA allowance that can be spread among stocks and shares, cash and the Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA).
But savers and investors can only open one of each type of product each tax year for new ISA subscriptions.
Read more: What’s next for the IFISA?
Read more: Consumers struggle to decide how to invest their money
For example, you can currently only hold an active IFISA on one P2P lending platform during a single tax year rather than being able to spread your allowance over several.
TISA is calling for chancellor Rishi Sunak to use his Budget next month to simplify the ISA system.
“ISAs are a huge success in the UK, and they have become the savings vehicle of choice for millions of consumers but at the moment individuals cannot invest in more than one of the same ISA type in a tax year,” TISA said.
“We call on the government to scrap the constraint on the number of ISAs that a consumer can subscribe towards in a year.
“Now more than ever consumers need flexibility to make their money work for them.”
TISA is also calling for the creation of secure digital IDs for individuals to use when engaging with financial products and also to boost the use of fintech and the wider digital economy.
“TISA’s mission is to improve the financial wellbeing of UK consumers,” David Dalton-Brown, chief executive of TISA said.
“We are constantly calling for change and raising awareness of financial services products and services that will improve people’s lives.
“I am confident that our proposals, including simplifying the ISA regime and increasing access to financial guidance, if implemented, would positively influence millions of UK financial services consumers and will bring significant long-term benefits to the UK economy, especially as we begin to navigate our way out of the Covid crisis.”
Read more: Zopa closes tax wrapper for this ISA season