Do we put this money in joint or individual account? £60,000

[mumma24]

We have an ISA with. 60,000 that has now matured and now we want to move it into another savings account. So in 10 months time we will use it to pay off our mortgage.
Should this go in a joint account or in my name? My husband is a high tax payer and I’m a non tax payer as I don’t work. My husband thinks it would be better in my name. Does it make any difference?

Does he earn over £100k?

If not it doesn't matter. If so it depends how much interest he's earning elsewhere

@OMGsamesame no £40,000 from work and £25,000 from pension

Speak to an IFA.

Keeping it in an ISA will keep it tax efficient. If you put it in joint names your husband will have a personal savings allowance of £500. A basic joint savings account will take you well over your limits and your interest will be taxable.

I would keep it in an ISA

@OMGsamesame he does have a £20,000 ISA too

Leave it in an ISA.

If you leave it in an ISA then you retain the option to use that year's ISA allowance.

Leave it in the ISA and then pay off the mortgage from there. Why on earth would you move it out of an ISA to a different savings account?

Move it into an instant access ISA.

If you haven't opened a new isa this year or paid into one you can do an Isa transfer and move it to the Isa with the best rate? Then it's outside of tax. (You can't withdraw it and pay it from one Isa to another without using up your annual allowance). Transfers are ok.

How has an ISA “matured”? They are indefinite and just keep rolling over to the next financial year.

you can’t have more than one ISA either.

i would double check it is actually an ISA and not some other savings scheme like an endowment.

Surely you can have more than 1 isa if they were opened in different tax years?

true. I was reading they he also had £20000 in an isa and thinking both have been contributed to.

an ISA doesn’t “mature” though

ISAs do ‘mature’ - it might have been a fixed rate one year deal for example. When that year is up the ISA has ‘matured’ and if you do nothing it might be moved by the bank or building society to a variable rate Cash ISA for example, You still retain the long term tax benefits.

I strongly suspect you can get interest rates that are good enough to justify keeping it in an accessible cash ISA - you would need to set one up and then request an ISA transfer. You don't want to move any more money out of an ISA than you actually require, ideally.

Having said that, if you are a non-earner then yes, 10 months' interest on 60k held in your name is not going to be taxable so focussing on finding the best interest rate that fits your timescale and putting it in your name makes sense.

[as an approximate illustration, if you put it in a joint account and earned 5% on 60k, in one tax year, that would be £3000 interest in total, £1500 each. Of your husband's £1500, £500 would take up his "personal savings allowance" and the remaining £1000 would be taxed at 40%]

Someone whose only income is from interest can get up to £18,570 in interest before they are taxed on it. This is from the personal tax allowance, the starting rate for savings and the personal savings allowance. If you are on a low (earned) income, below the personal tax allowance of £12570, you have £5000 starter rate and the personal savings allowance of £1000 that allow you to earn up to £6000 in interest before it is taxed. NB this is only the current rules and allowances, things may change!

You can have more than 1 isa but can only pay into one in any tax year. What new rate are they offering? Or if better rates elsewhere do an isa transfer - don't so the transfer yourself it all has to be done internally by the banks to keep it tax free

Transfer the ISA to keep the tax efficiency. You will lose the tax benefits as soon as you withdraw it otherwise

Pay off mortgage now?

@DustyMaiden theres a penalty for paying off the mortgage early. Thinks it’s around £4,000

Agree with others. The most sensible thing is to transfer it into an instant cash ISA.

Don't close the isa and withdraw the money. Once you do that you are restricted to the £20,000 limit. Transfer it to a new isa, either fixed rate or variable to suit you. It will have to stay in the same names as the original.

This isn't correct. You can say into more than 1 isa a year as long ad you stay within the £20000

You can gave more than one ISA. It used to be that they had to be different types eg a cash, a stocks and shares but that changed in April and now you can have and pay into more than one of the same type each year as long as you stay within the limit of £20000 per tax year