Is having my stock & shares ISA in the app by new tax year enough?!

[GingerNinja05]

Does anyone know if you need to have your £20,000 actually invested in specifics stocks & shares by midnight on April 5th to ensure you won't pay tax on it, or does having it as your balance in an app like FreeTrade enough? i.e. can you put it in the app, but actually invest it in the next tax year, or not?

Please help! Thanks!

[SalvorHardin]

You only need to have put the money into the ISA account before the end of the tax year (i.e. by midnight tonight)

There is no need to have bought any investments with the money in the current tax year.

[Lootman]

You only need to have put the money into the ISA account.

There is no need to have bought any investments with the money in the current tax year.

There used to be a penalty for putting cash into a S&S ISA and then not substantially investing it in equities within a reasonable period of time.

Do you know if that rule still exists?

[GingerNinja05]

Are you 100% sure of this? Thanks so much!

[GingerNinja05]

The "reasonable period" rule shouldn't impact me as I plan to invest it this week...but ideally, I don't want to be rushed into doing it before midnight tonight if it can be helped...however, I will do if it means making the deadline.

Thanks so much everyone. Really appreciate it!

[Lootman]

The "reasonable period" rule shouldn't impact me as I plan to invest it this week...but ideally, I don't want to be rushed into doing it before midnight tonight if it can be helped...however, I will do if it means making the deadline.

Thanks so much everyone. Really appreciate it!

I cannot recall the detail of the restriction but in any event a delay of a few days or weeks isn't going to be a problem. I think the concern was more people who were shielding large amounts of cash from taxation without being serious about investing it longer-term in shares.

[SalvorHardin]

There used to be a penalty for putting cash into a S&S ISA and then not substantially investing it in equities within a reasonable period of time.

Do you know if that rule still exists?

As far as I'm aware that rule vanished a quite a few years ago, around the time when cash ISAs were introduced. I've not seen anything about it for a long time.

IIRC the "rule" was quite vague and was only meant to stop people from holding cash for several years. It was never intended to apply for cash held for a few weeks.

The one time I ran into it was in the mid 1990s when a client had something like £60,000 in cash in their PEP for around six months and a compliance jobsworth got touchy about it. But nothing happened.

[GingerNinja05]

So I can 100% put my £20,000 into my FreeTrade account today. Another £20,000 tomorrow. And then, for example, invest all the £40,000 on Friday tax free...right?

Appreciate this SO much. Thanks again all!