Just wondering what the general consensus is. I already have an ISA with Freetrade and wondering if it would be worth my while upgrading or a waste of Ā£120 a year?
Itās all down to your personal style of investing. If youāre just someone who puts their money into index ETFs then the answer is no.
Investors who buy high risk high reward small caps will find it of value in order to get access to AIM market.
Either way itās fantastic value over traditional brokers who charge Ā£10 per trade
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My advise to anyone who asks is try it for a month at Ā£9.99 and see what you think??? If its for you keep goingā¦if its not you have only paid Ā£9.99 to find out.
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Donāt forget you get 3% interest on your cash so that yearly figure is dramatically reduced and 0 if you hold 4K in the account.
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The Ā£10 includes your ISA so an extra Ā£7 / month.
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I agree with @J4ipod94 I think it comes down to youāre investing style. For a lot of people all they really need are a couple of ETFs, maybe a trust of two and not much else. AIM, special markets, its just not on the picture.
im very much of the mind that anyone new to investing has no need for plus and no need to go anywhere near rickly stocks, or single company stocks at all. At least not for a little while.
on the other extreme if you make frequent trades, trade a lot of money and have a lost of investment cash around then Ā£10/m is nothing and very competitive compared to other brokers.
Just depends on your needs
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if you make frequent trades, trade a lot of money and have a lost of investment cash around
I thought FT was for new investors, not experienced day traders
Depends on the size of your portfolio.
If your gains per year are lower than 12500 even an ISA is a waste. With decently sized portfolio limit buys do get you some value. And then there are UK small cap stocks if you into those kinds of things.
p.s. Strictly speaking itās Ā£84 per year
frequent trades doesnāt necessarily mean day traders, im taking about a couple of trades a week at most. And i wouldnāt say Freetrade is just for new investors, otherwise thereās be no need to include most of the stocks it has.
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If you ever intend on taking out more than 12500 returns in one year youād benefit from the isa. I.e. you make 3000 plus for four years then sell.
There was also speculation about the ISA cap dropping. You could get caught out if you think Iāll sell 125000 / year then in two years they reduce the cap to 5000 or 2000 etc.
I think this is pretty much what I said.
There was also speculation about the ISA cap dropping
What?
A couple of trades a week isnāt frequent at all, and who decides which stocks they should be able to invest in, but the people themselves?
An ISA also protects any dividend income over the annual allowance (I think the dividend allowance is Ā£2000 for this tax year), so may be useful depending on the shares being held.
I remember Apple payed me an odd few pounds of dividends in ISA and it was taxed anyway. I thought dividends are in fact taxed in ISA.
Apple is a US company. The US doesnāt care about a tax shelter in the UK and collect withholding tax before it even gets to the UK.
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Not in SIPPs though, withholding tax is 0%
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Ah ok, I may have put undue importance on the ISA as well then.
So if I donāt trade at least Ā£12500 a year thereās not even any point having an ISA?
Not exactly.
Current capital gains tax allowance is Ā£12300
Which means that if your profit through trading is less than Ā£12300 you donāt need to pay tax on the gains
You also have a dividend allowance currently of Ā£2000, which means that if you get less than that in dividends you donāt need to pay taxes on those dividends.
If you make less than that then thereās no need for an ISA for protection against tax in the short term.
Therefore you could save the cost of the ISA.
However
One day you might want to transfer your assets from the GIA to the ISA. Current legislation doesnāt allow for in-specie transfers: you need to sell your stocks in the GIA and then transfer the money into the ISA. This rule will likely remain unchanged.
If you own one, two, three or four stocks thatās an easy process. You would be out of the market for a short time and that could be good or bad for you: we never know when prices go up or down.
If you own 20 or 30 stocks, I think that would be a painful process, having to sell them all at once in the GIA and then transfer into the ISA. But you donāt have to sell them all in the same day: you can spread the effort from the day you start till the day the financial year ends.
I think itās good practice not to let the GIA grow past the ISA deposit limit. It gives me peace of mind. Also, nowadays we are allowed to put up to 20k in the ISA. Who can guarantee the government wonāt reduce it?
Makes sense?!
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Really appreciate such a thorough reply, that helps a lot.
Can I just confirm, that Ā£12300 allowance, is that a separate thing to my standard personal allowance of Ā£12,500 per year? As in, regardless how much money I make in my normal day job per year, if I make less than Ā£12,300 profit a year from stocks I still wouldnāt need to pay tax on that?
Also, if that is the case, (and Iām guessing this is a stupid question) Iām guessing profit is only registered as such once a share is sold?
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yes
correct. Bare in mind this an allowance for Capital Gains, hence includes stocks, property, bonds and others
precisely
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