Monthly Archives: April 2015

General Election

What are the Major Parties’ Policies on the Personal Allowance?

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So with the general election coming up I thought it would be a good idea to try and find out what each party proposes to do with regard to the personal allowance. It has not been wholly easy to get this information but I have searched around and below is a summary of what I an find out:

Labour – I can’t actually find specific information on the personal allowance itself (that is not to say that there isn’t a specific policy on this but it is just difficult to find if there is) – however, they have pledged to reintroduce the 10% initial tax rate – one that was abolished by the previous labour government.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have pledged to increase the personal allowance to £12,500 – the Conservatives say this will be done by 2020 and the Lib Dems say they will do it within a year of coming to power.

UKIP have said in the past that they will increased the personal allowance to £13,500, the highest of all of the big players.

Savings

ISA Allowance 2015

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So with the new tax year coming into play tomorrow (6th April 2015) there is an increase in the ISA allowance. The previous allowance was set at £15,000 for the tax year 2014/15 (although it was only increased to this level on 1st July 2014) and this is being increased to £15,240 for the tax year 2015/16.

The allowance is for all ISAs, whether they be for cash or for shares so make sure you are not over paying into separate ISA accounts.

Also don’t forget that you can’t carry over any of your unused ISA allowance so unless you can find someone who is open today (Easter Sunday) to take any extra payment for 2014/15 then you are probably too late.

There are also new rules being introduced in the autumn where savers will be able to replace money that is withdrawn from an ISA, as long as this happens in the same year – more to come on this when further details are available.