ISA

Parasol Money – ISAs and other Investments

Parasol Money’s expertise in off-shore and on-shore investing means we can help you with a range of investment options and help ensure that you and not the tax-man fully benefit from your hard earned savings.

Whilst Parasol Money will tailor investment plans to your individual circumstances an ISA (Individual Savings Account) is a popular investment route which allow you to enjoy significant long term tax breaks and will often form the backbone of any recommendation. Parasol Money will advise you and help you choose the best ISA for your needs.

Benefits of an ISA

Builds a significant “nest egg” from your personal tax allowance, tax free

Choose from a range of ISAs to suit your needs

It’s a flexible saving plan for medium to long term investment

You can draw your cash out from an ISA at any time

Why choose Parasol Money

Independent financial advisors

Expert advise from Parasol Money’s investment specialists

Access to 1,000s of investment funds

Simple streamlined process

We understand the way you work so choose products designed to meet your needs

Complete flexibility to stop the investments without penalties

Make personal tax allowance work harder for you

With the continued introduction of “stealth taxes” it is vital that you make use of the dwindling number of tax breaks still available.

As an employees of Parasol, by using all or part of your £10,680 personal allowance to invest in an Individual Savings Account (ISA) means you can build up a significant “nest egg” tax free.

ISA allowances cannot be carried forward to the next tax year and so it’s a case of use it or lose it unfortunately.

ISA investors can deposit a maximum of 50% of their allowable portion in a cash based ISA, 100% in an equity (stock market) based ISA or a mixture of both.

The who, what & why on ISAs

ISAs come in a variety of options. You can invest in cash, stocks and shares based equity investments and bond funds: The who, what & why on ISAs.

Equity ISA

Historically the best use of these tax breaks has been to invest in a good equity based investment such as a unit trust, investment trust or similar share based fund. Given the fluctuations of the stock market, Parasol Money always advise a 5 year + term for the equities portion to allow your investment to have time to grow.

With 1000s of different funds on the market, Parasol Money will short list providers who offer the best in past performance and future prospects.

Parasol Money strongly advises making monthly contributions instead of waiting until the end of year tax rush when the markets may be boosted artificially due to last minute ISA investors. Monthly ISA investments help to smooth out fluctuations in the markets as you’re only committing a fraction of your total investment each month into the scheme.

Cash ISA

If you are likely to need your cash in the shorter term or if you require complete security from the fluctuations of the stock market, then a cash ISA which can be accessed at any time is the best option for you.

Cash ISAs usually also attract far higher interest rates from banks and building societies than a similar size investment into an ordinary accounts. This is due to the banks expecting to have your money for longer and will therefore reward you for this longer-term investment.

Protected ISA

Providers such as Scottish Widows have equity based ISA’s that track stock markets but that have varying degrees of protection for the underlying fund value. In this way, you benefit from some measure of the potential growth of equities but also have a degree of security to their money.

Pension or ISA?

It’s good to have both if you can, but the in-house Parasol personal pension scheme enjoys very significant up front tax breaks that are hard to beat. Out of every £100 invested into the pension, even as a basic rate taxpayer, the taxman has paid £42 and the benefits are even more substantial for a higher rate taxpayer.

In contrast, an ISA provides you more flexibility to take your money out tax-free, when you choose but this often means that as a long term investment it is not protected and can easily be dipped into.

It is important to understand that these investments are longer term in nature and that the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise. Past performance is also no guarantee of future performance.

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Parasol Money are here to help guide you through the investment maze.

To discuss all your options or for general advice please call 0845 062 8000 or email us at advice@parasolmoney.com.

Financial advice is given by Parasol Money, which is a trading name of Contractor Financials Ltd and is regulated and authorized by the Financial Services Authority.

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The value of investments may rise as well as fall and past performance is not a guide to future returns.