Is there a way to tell how much ISA allowance one has used?

Mar 02, 2016 33 Replies

Does HMRC or some other government agency have a record of how much one has invested in ISAs each year? We have had a complicated year and I just haven't a clue how much allowance I have left. Is there any way to find out?


As far as know you can have only one manager for cash ISA and one manager for stocks / shares ISA.

So you should know your manager(s) and go ask them. If you have more than the allowed managers you are in doodoo.

Surely that's not right.

Looking at

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it seems that amounts for one particular year have to be in one ISA but that's all.

Certainly not in "real time".

Ask every ISA manager with whom you have an account?

Of course if you don't know with whom you have accounts then you are in for a busy few weeks.

I would have thought rather the opposite, if I don't know who I have accounts with I won't be able to ask anyone anything will I? :-)

OK, thanks for the other comments, I guess I'll just have to do it the hard way.

If you don't have any records of where your money is, you might as not not have any money - because you won't be able to access it in a hurry - quite apart from the the problems it will give your executors when you die.

What I actually have is ISAs with more than one bank where I have on-line banking. Thus I can find everything if I visit all the accounts and search through the various ISAs in each. I know I have, for example, three ISAs with HSBC opened over the years. You can't close them either so I have some with stupidly trivial amounts in them which clutter up the on-line interface.

Not at all. You just work your way through the list of 500-odd authorised ISA providers which HMRC have collated for you

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Allow for the fact they may well want ID etc before revealing all.

It does in any case seem that HMRC have previously been fairly relaxed in dealing with the odd inadvertent breach in having more than one cash ISA per year, so long as the annual cash limit has not been exceeded.

But, AIUI, the OP can't remember which provider he made this year's contribution to.

Robert

A Subject Access Request to HMRC might be a tad simpler, if you can lay your hands on your address and NI or tax reference number.

Do you have any reason to believe that HMRC collect information about ISA subscriptions and link them to individual taxpayer's records before the end of the year? ISA managers used to be required to make only annual returns, after the end of the tax year, and that's still the story at

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Get your affairs in order ASAP! You could be run over tomorrow by a security van carrying all your money.

Would that actually tell me what I originally wanted to know? I know my own address and my NI number (surprisingly).

I don't know, tbh. Pace Robin's accurate comment about the annual returns to HMRC, made between April 6 and June 4 each year, this report does say that "Throughout the year Isa providers report how much each of their customers has invested", and it could be true. You could call the Isa helpline, mentioned in the same article, to see what they can provide. Assuming it's not been shut down as an economy measure.

That's actually quite a useful article, thank you. Basically it seems that if you do exceed your ISA allowance then HMRC just tell you and undo the bit you weren't allowed to do. No penalty except that you have to pay tax on any interest that you (wrongly) got tax free.

Your Executors would have a difficult task.

Surely everyone keeps a record of where their money is invested?

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