Stocks, Shares and Trade

Hi! I am thinking of buying shares. Which platform would be the best trading platform to use and how do you use it?

Do you have to declare any incomes made from the platform for tax?

You can find lists of platforms and their fees online. Look for a platform with cheap fees for what you are wanting to do. I assume they are all fairly similar to use - you make an account, put in money, buy some shares etc.

If you haven't used up your ISA allowance for this year, buy the shares in a Stocks & Shares ISA, so you won't need to pay tax.

What do you mean by ISA allowance? How do they work and do you set one up online from a trading platform or do you have to open a bank account for the stocks and shares ISA?

An ISA account is an account in which you are not taxed on the interest/profit. (In a normal cash or stocks and shares account, you would be taxed on these, if you earned enough.)

Currently, you are allowed to put up to £20000 (in total) a year into ISAs. You are allowed to add this money to a Stocks & Shares ISA and/or a cash ISA.

With the platforms I've seen:

1. You fill in an online form to open the Stocks & Shares ISA.

2.You then transfer money from your normal bank account to the Stocks & Shares ISA e.g. by debit card payment.

3. You can then leave this money as "cash" in the Stocks & Shares ISA, or you can use some or all of the cash to buy shares (you search the website for the shares you want, and click "deal" and type in how many you want). If you subsequently sell these shares, the money will be back as cash inside your Stocks & Shares ISA. So a Stocks & Shares ISA is an account in its own right, and can hold a mixture of stocks and cash.

You set up online logon details to be able to do this online. You should also be able to do it over the phone, or apply initially by post. If you are stuck in the process, most platforms should have a phone number you can ring to talk you through it.

You can only add up to £20k a year into your Stocks & Shares ISA. If you want to add more money than this in a year, you'd have to open a normal Stocks & Shares account, and shares bought in this account would then be taxable.



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I got it now. Thank you!