Overview
- Lewis's BBC podcast on Saturday explained that junior ISAs do not protect contributions from inheritance tax and that gifts into them face the standard seven-year rule.
- The child accounts let families pay in up to £9,000 a year per child and they shelter interest, dividends and gains from tax.
- Inheritance tax is charged at 40% above a £325,000 band, an extra £175,000 can apply for a main home passed to direct descendants, and couples can combine allowances to pass up to £1 million.
- For long-run saving, he said broad equity trackers have usually beaten cash, citing ten-year figures to end‑2025 that turn £1,000 into about £3,790 in the S&P 500 versus about £270 in a top savings account.
- To reduce timing risk, he urged pound‑cost averaging and said you can hold cash inside a stocks and shares ISA and drip it into a chosen fund over months.