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Comment by cjs_ac | Hacker News Reader

There’s also a lot of bureaucracy involved in participating in the gilt market directly, rather than using an intermediary.

https://www.dmo.gov.uk/investor-information/retail-investors...

I don’t think the Treasury really wants to deal with amateurs.

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No, but you can hold them through the standard range of intermediaries and still get the tax advantage.

NS&I offer a range of retail products - https://www.nsandi.com/guaranteed-returns is a good option but does NOT come with the tax exemption.

the tax exemptions make it very attractive place to hold cash versus bank accounts - if your a UK citizen google (or AI) - low coupon gilt investing.

Eh, for most people it's simpler to just use a cash ISA which can provide almost the same rates. Most people don't want or need to carry a huge cash float as opposed to other kinds of investment.

Well, yes, but after maximizing an ISA that's still an option. Also the government is clamping down on cash ISA.

I think they're clamping down on cash held in Stocks and Shares ISAs, not Cash ISAs.

As the government wants to encourage people to be invested and not hold cash, from '27 you'll only be able to add 12k in Cash ISA. They are planning to also change the limit on cash held on S&S ISAs to avoid an easy workaround for this limit

Ah I see, I wasn't aware of the Cash ISA change too, thanks.

That only works if the capital is already in an ISA or you want to invest less than £20k (soon to be 12k) though. It is common to use gilts to build a gilt ladder to have some level of guaranteed income for older/retired people. This allows you to build your own cheap annuity.

You can fully minimise tax by making 0 as well.

That's probably true

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