The perks of saving into a Junior ISAThere are so many factors for a parent to consider in doing their best to make sure their children are prepared for the world when they reach adulthood. A lot of those things will be out of your control, but one thing you can consider that could make a real difference is investing into a Junior ISA. If you start early you could accumulate a pot of over £40,000; that’s a birthday present that no 18 year old would be disappointed with.
Entering adulthood with that level of finances comes with life changing opportunities and great freedom of choice. Depending on their priorities, your child could put down a deposit on a property, start a business, pay for training or tuition fees, or even travel the world to their heart’s content.
On April 6th 2019, the amount that can be saved annually into a Junior ISA or Child Trust Fund account will increase from £4,260 to £4,368. Just like an adult ISA, your contributions are free from both income and capital gains tax and often come with relatively high interest rates. For example, Coventry Building Society offer an adult ISA with an interest rate of 2.3% per annum, whereas their equivalent Junior Cash ISA comes with a 3.6% per annum interest rate. Junior ISAs are easy to set up and easy to manage: as long as the child lives in the UK and is under the age of 18, their parent or legal guardian can open the ISA on their behalf. On their 18th birthday, the account will become an adult ISA and the child will gain access to the funds.
Both Junior Cash ISAs and Junior Stocks and Shares ISAs are available, and you can even opt for both, but your annual limit will remain the same across both ISAs. When making that decision there are a few considerations to make; cash investments over a long period of time are unlikely to overtake the cost of inflation but come at a lower risk than their stocks and shares equivalent. With a Junior ISA, however, you can benefit from a long term investment horizon. Although the stock market comes with a level of volatility, you can ride out some of the dips and peaks over a long period. Combined with good diversification, it’s possible to mitigate a fair amount of risk.
Taking a look at potential gains, had you invested £100 a month into the stock market for the last 18 years, figures from investment platform Charles Stanley suggests that a basic UK tracker fund would have built you a pot worth £39,313. In comparison, had you saved the same amount into cash accounts, you’d be closer to £24,000, a considerable difference of nearly £16,000.
With this latest hike in the saving allowance, it’s time to make the most of Junior ISAs and prepare to swap bedtime reading from Peter Rabbit and Hungry Caterpillar to stories of how a stocks and shares portfolio can secure your child’s future.
4 Key takeaways from the Spring Statement
Wednesday, March 20th, 2019The Spring Statement is an opportunity to hear the latest updates on the state of the UK economy and what to expect of its growth over the coming months and years. With most people setting their focus firmly on the amorphous hokey-cokey of Brexit negotiations, it’s something of a breath of fresh air to take a moment to look at concrete upcoming strategies and measurable realities.
With that in mind, here are 4 key points you can hang your hat on while what’s on or off the table continues to be debated in the background.
1) Taxes, Taxes, Taxes
Employment is up and that means more tax receipts for the Government’s coffers. 2018 ended with 440,000 more people in work than 12 months prior, with 60,000 fewer people relying solely on zero-hours contracts. Government borrowing fell in January to the lowest we’ve seen since 2001 and £21bn of income and corporation tax was raised, leaving a healthy monthly surplus of £14.9bn.
2) Even more taxes
The Making Tax Digital scheme is set to come into effect on April 1st 2019. Looking at it broadly, it’s an effort to modernise the tax system. The first step comes in the form of mandatory digital record keeping for VAT, for those businesses which find themselves above the VAT threshold. It’s undoubtedly a strong example of intent for the future.
3) You guessed it… taxes
No Safe Havens is an initiative that was introduced in 2013 to crack down on those who seek to evade their tax through hiding their income and assets overseas, and those who advise them on how to do so. The Spring Statement brought with it a declaration of further commitment to this cause by investing in the latest technology and enforcing tough new penalties while, at the same time, making sure it’s easy for law abiding taxpayers to handle their tax correctly.
4) Growth is good
Okay, it’s not all about taxes. The Office for National Statistics’ January figures demonstrate the UK Economy has grown to the tune of 0.5%, blowing the economists’ predictions of 0.2% out of the water with the biggest monthly increase we’ve seen since 2016. Construction saw notable growth of 2.8%, with the service sector up 0.3% and manufacturing up 0.8%. We saw inflation fall to 1.8% in January and the general consensus is that we can expect to see UK growth of between 1.3% and 1.4% this year.
That’s your breath of fresh air over. You can get back to talking about Brexit now. If you have any questions surrounding any of these topics or the Spring Statement in general, please feel free to get in touch with us directly.
Tags: budget
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