Anyone bothering with LISA?

[AtW]

It's a tulipe distraction that was solely designed to placate critics of a new tax grab - the idea at the time was to disallow pension tax relief and replace it with this tulipe, but Osborne chickened out of it, maybe it would have been OK had they not limited it to 4k per year (LOL)

[SeededLoaf]

It really is a tulip product. Forget using it for a pension, it only really benefits a few people who've never bought a house. For those souls who will save for years and collect the bonuses end up short anyway because house prices outstrip wage inflation.

[_V_]

I've been bothering Lisa for months, but since the restraining order, I think it's time to look elsewhere.

[Lambert Simnel]

Not suitable for stoozing, as far as I know.

a) first year, the government 25% bonus is paid out just at April 2018. The bonus isn't paid on an "as you contribute" basis until next year.
b) the 25% clawback for an early withdrawal is worse than just giving up the tax benefit. Effectively, you're able to withdraw 75% of what would have been 125% of your amount saved. 0.75 *1.25 = 0.9375, so you will lose 6% of what you've saved if you take it out other than as a first house purchase or at age 60.

The 6% loss is a killer. Note that you can't use it for a house purchase if you have ever owner or part-owned a house before, including if you have inherited a property (even if you immediately sold it). Given the restrictive conditions to avoid that clawback, and that it will still be consider in any means-testing, basically means it's got the potential for being mis-selling claims for years into the future, which is why so few ISA providers have signed up for it. It's a bad product for most IMHO

[d000hg]

There are only a few providers, all S&S but for those here that's probably not a major issue.

I'm trying to work out of there's stoozing potential to open one for a year then take it all out before the 25% penalty kicks in.

Other than that I rather feel that getting a 25% boost from the government is not a big plus for most of us, since we achieve something fairly similar by paying into our pensions via our Ltd? The 25% boost is basically just getting the tax back on the money you put in.