Stocks and Shares ISA

This account lets you make investments (lending money, shares, funds...) without being taxed on the profits. You can open a Stocks & Shares ISA with your bank or an online broker. We've rounded up a list of the best deals.  

Want to know how to start investing? Read this guide. 

Tax-free profits? I’m in. Is there a downside? 

Kind of. You can only deposit £20,000 a year into all your ISAs across the board (this includes any Cash ISAs you have). If you build up your Stocks & Shares ISA year after year, you’ll have a decent stash in the not too distant future.

Side note: If you invest both inside and outside of an ISA, consider that any loss made inside your ISA can't be used to off-set profit you made from investments outside of the ISA. 

This is confusing. Please explain!

Ok, say you own a second property and want to sell it to cash-in on the rising housing market. By selling you make a capital gain of £40,000. After taking away your capital gain allowance, you have to pay tax on the remaining £28,900 (and capital gain tax on residential property is 28% meaning a £8,000 tax bill!). Say in the same year you made a loss of £5,000 on your stock investments you could use this loss to offset your gain. That is, you only need to pay tax on £23,900 (reducing your tax bill to £6,700). But, if your stock investments were made inside an ISA then you would not be able to do this. 

Moxi Round-Up

You may want to consider opening a Stocks & Shares ISA when you’re starting out. This is true even with smaller investments because you may hold these shares for years and the capital gain could be significant by the time it comes to selling the shares. If you have many different types of investments, tax advice from a financial advisor or personal accountant could come in handy.