What caught my eye this week.
The tussle between HMRC and the fintech share dealing platforms over whether to enable the holding of fractional shares in an ISA may be reaching a climax.
To summarise, these typically app-based brokers enable you to gain exposure to less than a whole share and to hold these in your ISA account.
For instance Amazon shares currently trade at around $132 a pop. With Freetrade, say, you could invest $66 (ignoring FX fees) and get exposure to just half an Amazon share.
Sounds like a win-win, right? Well the taxman doesn’t approve.
From The Financial Times:
HM Revenue & Customs held a meeting with industry figures and Treasury officials last week, during which it maintained that this type of investment could not be held within a tax-free account despite platforms disputing this interpretation of the rules.
Platforms had hoped that chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s desire to simplify “a complex landscape” of Isa products and encourage more people to save and invest would soften HMRC’s position. They have urged the chancellor to clarify his position in next month’s Autumn Statement.
Moneybox, Trading 212, and the aforementioned Freetrade1 all enable customers to invest in fractional shares in their ISAs.
As far as I’m aware you can currently only invest in US fractional shares, and not UK ones. I’m not au fait with the underlying mechanics but imagine the apps are riding on the US exchanges’ rails.
Half a chance
The platforms argue that enabling fractional shares is a more democratic way to invest, because it allows people to put small amounts of money into individual (US) shares.
Sure, though I suspect it’s also so they can better maximise smaller trade sizes.
In my example you could put £400 into Amazon shares without the broker having to round down your order to the nearest share.
That makes it easier to get all your money invested. A win for the broker as well as the investor.
So what’s the problem? The issue is to do with what counts as a ‘qualifying investment’ in the ISA rules.
From HMRC’s perspective, that’s a fact and not an opinion. And the ISA rules which HMRC is following no doubt pre-date trading in fractional shares in the UK. They were written with some consumer protections in mind, so everyday ISA investors wouldn’t be encouraged to go spreadbetting or similar.
(Of course an ISA investor is free to put their money into spivvy small-cap mining stocks, but that’s a different kind of risk…)
Freetrade’s CEO Adam Dodds is quoted in the Investor’s Chronicle as saying:
Our fractional shares give retail customers ownership of a portion of an actual company share. They are not a derivative contract.
The protections and benefits for retail investors are effectively the same as for whole shares.
I guess I can see both sides.
The tax authority surely must uphold the rules as it sees them.
But it’s hard to see how its current interpretation serves anyone’s best interest, and it would surely be trivial for the government to fix.
On that note Freetrade has created a template letter that you can use to lobby the Treasury on the issue.
I’ve just noticed Freetrade suggested the deadline was yesterday. Oops! However I’ve clicked through and the Treasury still seems to be taking online representations.
If you want to give it a crack:
- Download/save a copy of Freetrade’s template letter.
- Go to the Treasury’s portal for submissions for the Autumn Statement
- Select ‘Personal’ and ‘Savings’ tax
- Attach the template letter and submit
Have a great weekend!
From Monevator
Could your partner manage the family finances without you? – Monevator [Members]
From the archive-ator: Living like a millionaire – Monevator
News
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UK house prices down 13.4% from peak in real terms [Search result] – FT
Bank transfer fraud protections could be weakened by the regulator – Which
American consumers unique in spending down pandemic savings – New York Fed
St James’s Place shares plunge on reports of fee overhaul [Search result] – FT
Top 10 up-and-coming areas in the UK for first-time buyers – This Is Money
Nobel economics prize awarded to Claudia Goldin for her work on women’s pay – BBC
The deadly Indian loan scam app that blackmails with nudes – BBC
Do honest countries make the best investments? – Morningstar
Products and services
Six ways to get a cheap or free will in October – Which
Copy trading: a road to riches or risk? [Search result] – FT
Coventry and Skipton launch Best Buy easy-access cash ISAs that pay more than 5% – This Is Money
Get £50 free trading credit when you open an account with Interactive Investor. Terms apply – Interactive Investor
Hargreaves Lansdown to launch readymade pension with 0.75% annual fee – This Is Money
The best offers for switching banks; get up to £200 cashback – MoneyWeek
Waiting lists for allotments in England almost doubles in 12 years – Guardian
Six homes listed for sale that come with solar panels – This Is Money
Open an account with low-cost platform InvestEngine via our link and get £25 when you invest at least £100 (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
New UK coins will help children learn how to add up – BBC
American Express hikes some annual card fees – Be Clever With Your Cash
Flats with gardens for sale, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
How to save more on a lower income – A Wealth of Common Sense
4% rule inventors’ latest thinking on withdrawal plans – Investor Perspectives
Spending is harder than saving for some people – A Teachable Moment
Bonds’ pain is a retirees gain – Morningstar
The paradox of past performance – Behavioural Investment
Trying to time the market costs UK investors 7% of their annual returns – II
“My kids are trust fund babies. And they have no clue.” – Slate
What makes someone rack up six-figure credit card debt? – Humble Dollar
The difference between stocks and bonds – A Wealth of Common Sense
“The war on poverty has become a war on the poor” – Guardian
Solved problem – Indeedably
Dying with zero: the life of Charles Feeney – Abnormal Returns
The particular problems men face in retirement – Humble Dollar
Naughty corner: Active antics
Larry Swedroe: how likely are market crashes? – Morningstar
Interview with UK investor Chris Mills [Podcast] – CityWire via Apple
The alpha of ugliness [Search result] – FT
Valuing intangibles, such as Birkenstock’s brand value… – Musings on Markets
…as the cult shoemaker goes public – CNBC
Twitter/X is dead, long live XYZ mini-special
The Israel-Hamas war is drowning X is disinformation – Wired
This is what an unmoderated Internet looks like – Garbage Day
Elon Musk created a safety mess on X – Mashable
So long Twitter, I’m outta there – Drezner’s World
How the attacks in Israel are changing Threads – Platformer
Kindle book bargains
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins – £0.99 on Kindle
Mastering the Market Cycle by Howard Marks – £0.99 on Kindle
The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath – £0.99 on Kindle
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
Half a billion cheap electrical items go to UK landfills a year – Guardian
The Amazon rainforest is being pushed close to a tipping point – Vox
“Refusing to fly has cost me my job as a climate researcher” – Guardian
How to build a heat-resilient city – Grist
Don’t worry about a global population collapse – Japan Times
The impact of impact investing – Musings on Markets
ESG’s… okay [Search result] – FT
Robot overlord roundup
Can AI beat the market? – Bloomberg via MSN
Off our beat
Are Golden Retrievers and other dog breeds dying younger? – Slate
Even Google was afraid to release this facial search engine technology – NPR
Understanding FOBO, the grown-up version of FOMO – Darius Foroux
Why Gen Z is obsessed with the Duolingo owl – Fast Company
Don’t just look at the results – A Wealth of Common Sense
And finally…
“Investors who focus on currencies, bonds, and stock markets generally assume a normal distribution of price changes: values jiggle up and down, but extreme moves are unusual. Of course, extreme moves are possible, as financial crashes show. But between 1985 and 2015, the S&P 500 stock index budged less than 3 percent from its starting point on 7,663 out of 7,817 days; in other words, for fully 98 percent of the time, the market is remarkably stable.”
– Sebastian Mallaby, The Power Law
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- Disclosure: I’m a shareholder in Freetrade. [↩]
Linking SJP, HL, copy traders & Amex pieces. HL’s basic pension = 0.75% fee -v- Vanguard’s @ 0.06% for product + 0.15% (capped) for platform. FCA finally moving against SJP (e.g. 1% p.a. early withdrawal fees for up to 11 yrs). eToro copy trader 1.5% p.a. charge (Millennials / Gen Z’s own high fee, underperforming, active trap?) Amex above inflation fee hikes. All just another day in Rip Off Britain.
Thanks for highlighting this issue TI. Just to say, you certainly can buy fractional shares in UK companies in a UK ISA on Trading 212, not just US shares. Perhaps HMRC are making an issue of this to persuade the government to find time to sort something they can’t do by way of regulations. The more of us that lobby on the point, the more likely a sensible outcome will be achieved.
Are purchases of fractional ETFs also within scope of the HMRC ISA legislation?
I moved some ISA cash into InvestEngine. All the products there are ETFs and one cannot buy in round numbers. I was very happy with IE but moved the money out to x-o after reading that fractional shares might not be ISA compliant. I may have jumped the gun, as buying a fund amounts to owning fractions of shares and the F in ETF stands for fund, although HMRC may see the matter differently. I would use IE again but only once HMRC have given the all clear.
@Onedrew – Use both Freetrade (SIPP) and Investengine (ISA). Freetrade does not facilitate fractional purchases of ETFs whilst Investengine does. Would like to see this resolved as I like the platform offering of investengine.
They could solve the problem instantly by allowing ISAs to own derivative contracts. Allowing people to trade whatever they want inside an ISA should be just a basic feature. Instead we have to jump through hoops to hold futures or options.
Of course, I’m saying this in an environment where we have a whole plethora of unnecessary types of ISA rather than just one. Plus some actually want to restrict our rights more by forcing us to buy UK companies in ISAs.
You missed an opportunity for a Brexit mini-special? The IMF again predicted UK would be worst growth in G7 in 2024?
I suppose even the most ardent remoaner has woken up that the ‘experts’ predictions weren’t facts… just biased opinions that come to be revised away.
This time last year you’d all be proclaiming the IMF prediction from the rooftops… ‘proof’ you were right all along…
@NLC — Oh, thanks for that useful extra information. I wonder how the mechanics of these things work in that case, perhaps they are different on different platforms and some are using nominee pooled accounts where others are using some kind of derivative for exposure?
@BBlimp — Brexit was a national disaster that has delivered no demonstrable / meaningful benefits at great — though yes, far from fatal — cost.
Even I don’t want to stretch my reader’s patience by saying the same thing too often. Cheers!
@all — I have been directed to an interesting article on the Tax Policy Associates, which believes HMRC will be found wrong in this instance:
https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/10/12/fraction/
Dan Neidle has an excellent summary on the fractional share ISA issue here: https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/10/12/fraction/
Is there any convincing reason(s) why an ISA cannot be reformed to all you as an individual to invest in whatever you like? Genuinely interested to learn the reasoning behind the restrictive terms currently enforced on investors.
@ZXSpectrum48K – intrigued that jumping through hoops might enable one to hold futures or options in an ISA. Please could you elaborate any further?
@Vroom. Nothing clever at all. You can’t hold options but you can invest in funds with reporting status. So you need to construct a fund wrapper with that status to hold the options. That’s a six figure sum to set up so only works in scale, typically for option structures where you are happy to hold them over the long-term. You can’t easily trade options within such a fund so you have to accept illiquidity. I’ve participated a handful of times in those types of structures in the last 15 years or so.
@ZXSpectrum48k , I am intrigued by this work around for futures and options trading in an ISA. What stock exchange do you use to list such funds?
Interactive Brokers is another one that currently allows fractional shares in an ISA, and they definitely do allow them on UK shares, not just US (I happen to have 23.4472 shares of Unilever – for the very boring reason you highlighted, getting substantially the entire account invested, rather than only what you can do in whole shares). So it would be a minor annoyance if HMRC won’t relent/the rules don’t change. But at least many UK shares are low price per share – in a pinch you could always buy whole shares of, say, Vodafone at 77p each to use up any remaining uninvested cash.
Interesting series of links on the steep decline of Twitter/X (and co) as a source of news. It added a great new word to my vocabulary, enshittification, which I do feel I can use to great effect in my workplace.
Another Brexit type moment in Australia?
It does seem that our urban centres where our leaders (and protesters) reside but that do not contain the bulk of the population are increasingly moving further apart -consequences for investors ?
Probably a flight to quality and bonds?
xxd09
The fractional shares business is quite a worry. I do hope the regulations are changed to permit their use is ISAs.
Does anyone know if a platform permits fractional share purchases on an ETF say then all your purchases are treated as fractional, even if whole shares are bought? And is it only the remainder of a fractional trade that HMRC is claiming is against the ISA rules?
It’s a right can of worms isn’t it?
@Ian #19: it certainly is. I’d take some comfort from the fact that, as S&S ISAs are so widely held, there’s going to be strong pressure to find a solution. I don’t think a definite view was reached on the question posed re: ETFs by @William #3. As far as I can recall now, HL’s systems, for example, round down ETF purchases with a £ input value to buy/sell to nearest whole number ‘unit’/’share’ of the ETF in question.
I’m surprised nobody has commented on the Morningstar link as it’s very relevant to this forum. Although I can’t really get close to his lower two numbers by backing them out. Anyway the key message is that theoretical SWR’s have substantially improved…. IF…. You’re buying in today.
In the past I’ve seen some posts on this forum talk about using the long term ILG yield as being their SWR… Which i thought theoretically fine if you’re hedged ( and monied obviously). Though I suspected it was just a sound bite to signal the latter. If it wasn’t, well they’re still hedged but maybe less monied.
@Vic #21: one metric for SWR which I’ve seen (for a 50/50 bond/equity split, IIRC) was 1.5% p.a. + (0.5 x (100/CAPE ratio))% p.a. Using global equities and a current CAPE (10 yr) of 21 (@TA’s July 1st 2023 piece on CAPE gives details on using CAPE to estimate SWRs) presently results in a SWR figure of just under 4% p.a. Short duration conventional gilts are around (or a tad under) 5% currently, so the 1.5% figure in the formula from the 50% bonds’ element perhaps looks a little bit conservative just at the moment (as it implies a long term yield to maturity from this limb of a 50/50 mix of just 3% p.a.)
Sorry for a 2nd consecutive post. ‘Robot overlord roundup’ link section: NOEMA website now giving convincing argument for why LLMs already = AGI.
If the companies who issue the shares don’t recognise fractional shares, and HMRC doesn’t…, who actually owns these ‘artificial constructs’ ?
Interesting Tax Policy article on fractional shares – I have one Amazon share which I acquired by buying multiple fractions, using the odd few quids sitting in my Freetrade account. If HMRC’s view was upheld, wonder if that one share would fall afoul and still be deemed fractional?
I hope that individual investors are not penalised for buying fractional shares on these platforms. Trading212 at least does not mention the dispute with HMRC when signing up or buying/selling fractional shares in an ISA, so the average customer (me!) will assume everything is above board.
I used Trading212 for my ISA this year, for a cashback offer, but have been somewhat disappointed by them.
Unlike “proper” brokers (E.g. IWeb), they don’t give you an execution price and then the option to continue with the buy/sell. Instead, you tap “buy” without actually knowing the price and a few minutes later it tells you that the buy succeeded at a particular price.
Also, the price seems to be slightly worse at Trading212. For example, I just bought 28 shares (tiny amount, perhaps this skews the figures) of TMPL.L:
– IWeb quoted a buy price of 233.9p per share (I did not execute the trade).
– Trading212 executed the trade at 234.5p per share (0.25% more than IWeb).
Quite how consistently the price is worse, and whether this applies to larger orders, I have not spent the funds to investigate…
My question regarding HMRC’s ISA Fractional Shares issue, does index funds like Vanguard’s includes FS? Not ETF, just standard funds like LS100, VEVE, VUKE etc?
@Manny #27: I don’t think so, and it also doesn’t look like ETFs will be affected either. There was a round up on 7circles on Friday on what’s covered by this issue:
https://the7circles.uk/fractional-shares/
@Manny: Just for clarity here, VEVE and VUKE are ETFs while LS100 is a mutual fund. I’m keen to know HMRC’s view on ETFs: they are funds – hence the F – although they trade like shares. Unlike shares, there’s no stamp duty on ETFs, and in that respect they are treated as funds which in effect are a pool of fractional investments.
It’s a mess and the rules need a rewrite.
@ Gruff – the worse price may help explain why Trading 212 are able to charge zero commission / zero platform fee.
@ Manny – mutual fund structures (e.g. OEICs / Unit Trusts vehicles as used by index funds) are not caught up in this fractional share business.
Not sure why 7circles writers think that ETFs aren’t caught up in it. Last I checked there wasn’t any reason to think they weren’t.
I’m a bit confused by this issue and is putting me off investing in ETF’s.
Wondered whether anyone knows if there has been any clarification lately as I know it was mentioned in the autumn statement but didn’t go into much detail at the time about any proposed changes.
@TA #30 mentioned he believes ETF’s are affected by this whereas this Vanguard article:
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/articles/latest-thoughts/markets-economy/what-the-autumn-statement-means-for-you?cmpgn=NL1123UKCENWS0104EN
under the heading “What’s happening to ISAs” says this:
“Meanwhile, the chancellor announced plans to allow investors to buy certain fractional shares within their ISAs. This relates to shares bought and sold on a stock exchange and not exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual fund units, which are already allowed in ISAs.”
So I’m not sure what to believe as a lot of conflicting information out there it seems.
Is anybody aware if fractional ETFs are actually allowed in an ISA (without consequences from HMRC on us lowly investors further down the line?) It’s just I, like many, don’t want problems from HMRC as had too many with them in the past (when I used to work self-employed) and it’s not worth the stress, time and trouble they put you under even when you make a very small mistake.
Many thanks in advance for anybody that can enlighten me.