Top up your ISA and pension before the end of the tax year

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I’m sure you’ve already been bombarded from all sides but the end of the tax year is coming up next week.

While officially the tax year ends on 5 April, if you’re planning to make any transactions, you’ll want to get it in a couple of days before.

This is because there’s usually a delay between when you deposit the money and when it goes through.

Of course, that assumes you’ve already got an existing account.

If you don’t, in some cases it may already be too late – but that doesn’t mean you can’t get ahead of the curve and do it for next year.

As for what type of transactions, well, topping up your ISA is the most obvious one.

I actually wrote about whether it’s worth having an ISA at all this time last year. 

In terms of how much you can put in, each year you have a £20,000 personal allowance. But if you have a LISA, this bites into your overall allowance. 

So if you max out your LISA at £4,000, you’ll only have a £16,000 allowance for your ISA.

The other big one is your pension allowance – and this is perhaps more pertinent if you’re self employed as it’s easier to top up your pension any time.

You get a personal allowance of £40,000 a year for pensions, or 100% of your income if that’s less, and a lifetime allowance of just over a million.

There’s tax relief of course – essentially the government tops up your pension, with the amount dependent on your income tax bracket.

But if you’re a higher or additional taxpayer, you could also lower your tax burden by paying into your pension.
Last year I also covered whether a LISA or pension might work better for you.