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29 March 2006
With the April 5th deadline drawing ever nearer, a high street building society has expressed concern about the 27 million UK adults who still do not have an Isa.
Research from Abbey has shown that although 96 per cent of British adults know that an Isa is a savings account and 76 per cent are aware that the main benefit of an Isa is tax-free savings, 56 per cent do not own one.
The main reason for not having an Isa was not having enough money (45 per cent), with 13 per cent saying that they did not want their money to be tied up or inaccessible, revealed the research.
"At Abbey, our biggest concern is the fact that the majority of people aren't getting the full benefit of tax-free savings because they don't fully understand Isas," said Abbey head of investments marketing Pak Chan.
"As an industry, we need to work harder to highlight the fact an Isa can be opened with as little as £1 and that money can be withdrawn without charge. A tax free interest rate of 4.6 per cent is worth 5.78 per cent to a basic rate tax payer so it's well worth having one."
The deadline for putting the maximum amount of money into an Isa each year is April 5th .
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