Bestinvest’s Tales from Tax Year-End 2019

• Three minute scramble - our final ISA investment came in at 11.57pm
• A new ISA account was opened at 11.54pm

Welcome to a new tax year and with it renewed allowances. The ISA allowance remains the same of £20,000 personal limit, however Junior ISAs have increased to £4,368 and the personal tax allowance has increased to £12,500. We now have the next year to fill our boots with the tax free perks that are offered. Yet we know that it is human nature to leave things until the last minute, and Friday’s end of tax year 2018/19 proved no different. Lee Dooley, Chief Commercial Officer at Bestinvest, part of the Tilney Group, comments on the tales learnt from the end of the tax year:

“Friday night was no different to any previous years, with many investors investing up until the final stretch. Our telephone lines were open up until midnight to assist with any last minute requests which came in thick and fast. The last ISA account was opened at 11.54pm with the last subscription coming in at 11.57pm, leaving only 180 seconds to sort out their investments!

“ISA investing doesn’t have to be left until the final moment. Not only does investing earlier in the tax year remove some of the pressure to make a hasty decision; it also means your hard earned cash is put to work for longer. After all, as the saying goes ‘the early bird catches the worm’ and in the case of an ISA there is a whole year of potential returns to be had.

“Another option is to take the timing out of the process altogether by investing on a regular basis. Investing regularly takes the emotion out of investing: it is all too easy to have your investment decisions clouded by current sentiment or events that shouldn’t really matter if you are investing for the long-term. Investing regularly should also help to reduce market timing risk as you’ll end up with ‘pound cost averaging’, an average entry price that reflects some days when the market is up and others when it was down.”