UK: How to *leave* self select stock and shares ISA (without selling the shares)?
Your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) do not in any way impact on your future ISA allowances. The only thing that uses up your ISA allowance is you paying new cash into an ISA account. So you can leave your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) and simply open new ISA(s) for future contributions which suit your current plans.
I have an ESPP with E*Trade; you can transfer stock like that via a physical (paper) asset-transfer form. Look for one of those, and if you can't find it, call your brokerage (or email / whatever). You own the shares, so you can generally do what you want with them. Just be very careful about recording all the purchase and transfer information so that you can deal properly with the taxes. If you havent yet maxed out your ISA, then its a no-brainer. You get excellent tax rebates and its silly not to take advantage of these before considering self investing in shares.   Note that even if your ISA is maxed out, the economic turbulence means that investing in individual stocks is an intimidating place for beginners right now.  The FSA is also looking at revising the average percentages used for pension, from 7% for adventurous investments, down to 5% or 6%, so there is industry wide recognition that on average the stock market is going to be a little less lucrative than it was a few years ago. Thats not to say you cant still make a whopping profit, but the chances of you doing so as a first time investor are remote to say the least. My advice would be to look seriously into some of the social lending sites, where you can still easily get a 7% return with minimal risk. Whilst I do have a portfolio which is performing well overall (I am a very speculative investor), I am moving a lot of funds into Zopa.com, as I am averaging 7% return with a lot less time, effort and risk than the stockmarket.  Whatever you decide, I think its time you thought about consulting an IFA. They can help you understand what sort of risk you are willing to tolerate, which is a very important aspect of investing. "I've got £476,000 but the maximum house price is £450,000. What   happens to the £26,000. Does it stay there with ~6% interest (and no bonus of course), and would be available when I retire at around 75 (there would be about £106,000 by then)? Yes, anything you don't withdraw for your house purchase stays in the Lifetime ISA and keeps growing there. Also you do keep the bonus on it, which was paid at the time you subscribed, unless you make a withdrawal before age 60. After age 60 you can withdraw and keep the bonus. Note that you need to be buying with a mortgage to be allowed to use the lifetime ISA money (without penalty). This is mentioned on the gov.uk website as well as in the actual regulations that establish lifetime ISAs (search for ""first time residential purchase"" and look at clause (6)). That would mean you'd need to withdraw even less than the £450K and artificially borrow the rest. All that said, I suspect the £450K limit would be raised by 2049, given inflation. Can I buy a house and ""quickly"" sell it again, to simply access the money, The regulations say that on completion of the purchase, you must ""occupy the land as their only or main residence"" (there are a few exceptions, such as if it's still being built, or if you are at the time posted abroad by the government, but essentially you have to move in as soon as possible). There's no time limit stated in the regulations, so in theory you could move in and then sell quite fast, but personally I'd be nervous about this being seen as not genuinely intending it to be my main residence. In theory you could be prosecuted for fraud if you claimed a valid withdrawal when it wasn't, though given the wording of the regulations it looks like you'd be complying with the letter of the law." "@Alex B's answer hits most of it, but leaves out one thing: most companies control who can own their non-public shares, and prohibit transfers, sales, or in some cases, even ongoing ownership by ex-employees. So it's not that hard to ensure you stay under 500 investors.   Remember that Sharespost isn't an exchange or clearinghouse; it's basically a bulletin board with some light contract services and third-party escrow services.   I'd guess that many of the companies on their ""hot"" list explicitly prohibit the sale of their non-public shares." It is the first time I encounter redemption programme and I would like to know what are my options here You can hold on to the shares and automatically receive 2.25 SEK per share some time after 31-May; depending on how fast the company and its bank process the payouts. Alternatively you can trade in the said window for whatever the market is offering. how is this different from paying the dividend? I don't know much about Sweden laws. Structuring this way may be tax beneficial. The other benefit in in company's books the shareholders capital is reduced. can I trade these redemption shares during these 2 weeks in May? What is the point of trading them if they have fixed price? Yes you can. If you need money sooner ... generally the price will be discounted by few cents to cover the interest for the balance days. "Self directed IRAs have rules to prevent self-dealing of this sort called ""prohibited transactions"". You can't buy or sell or lease assets or obtain services from anyone closely linked to you or any beneficiaries of the IRA. You can't loan yourself money from the IRA, and you can't deliberately take the proceeds that should be going to your self directed IRA and give them to another account that you own." You should check this with a tax accountant or tax preparation expert, but I encountered a similar situation in Canada. Your ISA income does count as income in a foreign country, and it is not tax exempt (the tax exemption is only because the British government specifically says so). You would need to declare the income to the foreign government who would almost certainly charge you tax on it. There are a couple of reasons why you should probably keep the funds in the ISA, especially if you are looking to return. First contribution limits are per year, so if you took the money out now you would have to use future contribution room to put it back. Second almost all UK savings accounts deduct tax at source, and its frankly a pain to get it back. Leaving the money in an ISA saves you that hassle, or the equal hassle of transferring it to an offshore account. If I open and fill an ISA, then leave the account alone for an entire year, will I then be able to add an additional £[Insert ISA limit here] to the original money I put in the account?  Yes, you can. Will the full sum of £[Last years limit] + £[This years limit] that is in the account have interest paid on it? Yes, it will. Will the account be closed at the end of the period regardless? No. The account would only be closed if you requested it to be closed. Otherwise it would sit there with the original balance in it earning interest at the stated rate. The only way I can see an ISA being of any worth is by building up a substantial amount this way, but you would need so much cash laying around to max the ISA year on year. Just think of an ISA as like a completely normal savings account except that you don't pay tax on the interest, and there is a limit to how much you can deposit in any given year.  Right now, while interest rates have been low for a while, the savings rates on any account (including ISAs) are not desperately attractive; additionally, with the recent changes to how interest on normal savings accounts are taxed, ISAs are not quite such a big deal as they used to be.  If you look back to a time when interest rates were around 5%, a higher rate tax payer with £50,000 in a normal savings account would earn £2500 interest in a year, on which they would pay £1000 in tax. That made an ISA a very attractive option indeed. SIPPs tend to have relatively high fees, so if you stick with simple stuff and never use the freedom to invest widely, you might be wasting money. At least an element of the fees tends to be a fixed amount rather than a percentage, so generally you also need a few tens of thousands of pounds to put in before they make sense. One thing that worries me slightly about SIPPs (I have one myself) is the fraud risk: what if a corrupt employee of the trustee company runs off with my money? I'm not sure that there's any compensation scheme that would cover that situation. If any of your old pension pots are in defined benefit schemes rather than money purchase, you should probably leave those ones where they are. Other than that I don't see any pitfalls. "You understood it pretty right. Every fiscal year (which runs from April 6 year Y to April 5 year Y+1), you can deposit a total GBP15k (this number is subject to an annual increase by HMRC) into your ISAs. You can open 2 new ISA every year but the amount deposited to those ISAs shall not excess GBP15k in total. From the 2016/17 tax year some ISAs now permit you to replace any funds you have withdrawn, without using up your allowance. It used to be that if you deposited GBP15K and then withdrew GBP5K, you could not pay in to that ISA again within that tax year as you had already used your full allowance. Under new Flexible ISA rules this would be allowed providing you replace the funds in the same ISA account and within the same tax year (strongly recommend that you check the small prints related to your account to make sure this is he case). Any gains and losses on the investments held in the ISA accounts are for you to take. i.e. If you make investment gains of GBP5K this does not reduces your allowance. You will still be able to deposit GBP15k (or whatever HMRC increases that number to) in the following year. You are also allowed to consolidate your ISAs. You can ask bank A to transfer the amount held into an ISA with bank held with bank B. This is usually done by filling a special form with the bank that will held the money post transactions. Again here be very careful. DO NOT withdraw the money to transfer it yourself as this would count against the GBP15K limit. Instead follow the procedures from the bank. Finally if you don't use your allowance for a given year, you cannot use it during the following year. i.e. if you don't deposit the GBP15K this year, then you cannot deposit GBP30K next year. NB: I used the word ""deposit"". It does not matter to HMRC if the money get invested or not. If you are in a rush on April 4th, just make sure the money is wired into the ISA account by the 5th. No need to rush and make bad investment decision. You can invest it later.  Hope it helps" "Yes it's entirely possible; see below.  If you can't find anything on transfers out (partial or otherwise) on anyone's site it's because they don't want to give anyone ideas. I have successfully done exactly what you're proposing earlier this year, transferring most of the value from my employer's group personal pension scheme - also Aviva! - to a much lower-cost SIPP.  The lack of any sign of movement by Aviva to post-RDR ""clean priced"" charge-levels on funds was the final straw for me.  My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner!  Transfer paperwork was initiated from the SIPP end but I was careful to make clear to HR people and Aviva's rep (or whatever group-scheme/employee benefits middleman organization he was from) that I was not exiting the company scheme and expected my employee and matching employer contributions to continue unchanged (and that I'd not be happy if some admin mess up led to me missing a month's contributions). There's a bit more on the affair in a thread here.  Aviva's rep did seem to need a bit of a prod to finally get it to happen.  With hindsight my original hope of an in-specie transfer does seem naive, but the out-of-the-market time was shorter and less scary than anticipated. Just in case you're unaware of it, Monevator's online broker list is an excellent resource to help decide who you might use for a SIPP; cheapest choice depends on level of funds and what you're likely to hold in it and how often you'll trade." Your question is actually quite broad, so will try to split it into it's key parts: Yes, standard bank ISAs pay very poor rates of interest at the moment. They are however basically risk free and should track inflation.  Any investment in the 6-7% return range at the moment will be linked to stock. Stock always carries large risks (~50% swings in capital are pretty standard in the short run. In the long run it generally beats every other asset class by miles). If you can’t handle those types of short terms swings, you shouldn’t get involved. If you do want to invest in stock, there is a hefty ignorance tax waiting at every corner in terms of how brokers construct their fees. In a nutshell, there is a different best value broker in the UK for virtually every band of capital, and they make their money through people signing up when they are in range x, and not moving their money when they reach band y; or just having a large marketing budget and screwing you from the start (Nutmeg at ~1% a year is def in this category). There isn't much of an obvious way around this if you are adamant you don't want to learn about it - the way the market is constructed is just a total predatory minefield for the complete novice. There are middle ground style investments between the two extremes you are looking at: bonds, bond funds and mixes of bonds and small amounts of stock (such as the Vanguard income or Conservative Growth funds outlined here), can return more than savings accounts with less risk than stocks, but again its a very diverse field that's hard to give specific advice about without knowing more about what your risk tolerance, timelines and aims are. If you do go down this (or the pure stock fund) route, it will need to be purchased via a broker in an ISA wrapper. The broker charges a platform fee, the fund charges a fund fee. In both cases you want these as low as possible. The Telegraph has a good heat map for the best value ISA platform providers by capital range here. Fund fees are always in the key investor document (KIID), under 'ongoing charges'. If you expect to pay tax on dividends move dividend producing assets into your ISA. If have a lot of investments you can Look at Zeros (zero dividend preference share) issued by splits  (split capital trusts), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_capital_investment_trust Does this make sense? I'm concerned that by buying shares with post tax income, I'll have ended up being taxed twice or have increased my taxable income. ... The company will then re-reimburse me for the difference in stock price between the vesting and the purchase share price. Sure.  Assuming you received a 100-share RSU for shares worth $10, and your marginal tax rate is 30% (all made up numbers), either: or So you're in the same spot either way.  You paid $300 to get $1,000 worth of stock. Taxes are the same as well.  The full value of the RSU will count as income either way, and you'll either pay tax on the gains of the 100 shares in your RSU our you'll pay tax on gains on the 70 shares in your RSU and the 30 shares you bought.  Since they're reimbursing you for any difference the cost basis will be the same (although you might get taxed on the reimbursement, but that should be a relatively small amount). This first year I wanted to keep all of the shares, due to tax reasons and because believe the share price will go up. I don't see how this would make a difference from a tax standpoint. You're going to pay tax on the RSU either way - either in shares or in cash.  how does the value of the shares going up make a difference in tax? Additionally I'm concerned that by doing this I'm going to be hit by my bank for GBP->USD exchange fees, foreign money transfer charges, broker purchase fees etc.  That might be true - if that's the case then you need to decide whether to keep fighting or decide if it's worth the transaction costs. An ISA is a much simpler thing than I suspect you think it is. It is a wrapper or envelope, and the point of it is that HMRC does not care what happens inside the envelope, or even about extractions of funds from the envelope; they only care about insertions of funds into the envelope. It is these insertions that are limited to £15k in a tax year; what happens to the funds once they're inside the envelope is your own business.  Some diagrams: Initial investment of £10k. This is an insertion into the envelope and so counts against your £15k/tax year limit.                 +---------ISA-------+ ----- £10k --------->              |                +-------------------+  So now you have this:                 +---------ISA-------+                |  £10k of cash     |                +-------------------+  Buy fund:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £10k of ABC    |                +-------------------+  Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £12k of ABC    |                +-------------------+  Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £12k of cash   |                +-------------------+  Buy another fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-----------------+                | £10k of JKL & £2k of cash   |                +-----------------------------+  Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-----------------+                | £11k of JKL & £2k of cash   |                +-----------------------------+  Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £13k of cash   |                +-------------------+  Withdraw funds. This is an extraction from the envelope; HMRC don't care.                 +---------ISA-------+ <---- £13k ---------               |                +-------------------+  No capital gains liability, you don't even have to put this on your tax return (if applicable) - your £10k became £13k inside an ISA envelope, so HMRC don't care. Note however that for the rest of that tax year, the most you can insert into an ISA would now be £5k:                 +---------ISA-------+ ----- £5k --------->               |                +-------------------+  even though the ISA is empty. This is because the limit is to the total inserted during the year.