ISA as an income help please

happyhero

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Hi I took out a self select MAXI ISA a few years ago and have been buying and selling stocks in it regularly. It has now grown to the point where I am considering taking a regular income from it, but although it is normally clear as to what the tax implications are with ISA's i.e. you don't need to tell the tax man anything, does this change at any point?

For example, yes they are free from tax, and you can put £7000 into a Maxi every year and hope it grows, but taking it to extremes, what if it grows ten fold, in theory the tax man should still leave you alone but it just seems odd to me that with that much in there, they wouldn't want something from you. Does anyone know if there are any regulations that change it's tax status at a certain extreme level, i.e a built in protection in the small print put in by the tax man?

Another query, if I were to take an income from the ISA and had no other real income, wouldn't the tax man become interested in the fact that I have an income yet I pay no tax on it.

Looking at it in another way, because I would not have to tell the tax man anything about my ISA, it could appear to him that I pay all my debts, and mortgage etc, without any income, a bit odd on the surface.

Now I know the tax man does not often go looking and pairing up this information, but that does not mean I wouldn't contact the Inland Revenue about something else and therefore they would get to know all about my odd situation, not that I am doing anything odd, but just that I would like to know the possible implications.

I would be grateful for any comments or help regarding the above.
 
It does not matter what size your ISA is or becomes, you never have to pay income tax or cgt on it. Bear in mind that anys divs you have received have already borne tax and even isa's haven't been able to reclaim this tax charge for a year or so now.

Thus, even if you didn't hold the shares in an isa and had no other income, you could get dividend income of about £38k ( the higher rate threshold whatever it is) and still have no income tax to pay. But again, the level of an isa holding is immaterial, it's all tax free, even for 40% tax payers.

If hmrc did ask you questions, which they might, as long as you have documentation to prove the source of your income, you will be fine. On straight forward issues like this, they really are pretty good to deal with, honestly!

So relax and go and enjoy the fruits of your labours...
 
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