Moving Shares Into An Isa

[woofgang]

I hold shares in an online dealing account. I am not interested in playing the market, the shares are from a company scheme. Can I move shares into an ISA and is there any benefit to doing so?

Thanks

[factor-fiction]

From Martin Lewis's site:
Placing investments inside an ISA wrapper provides three tax advantages. First, any profits made from share price increases aren't eligible for capital gains tax, second, it enables all the tax on bonds to be reclaimed, and third, it means dividend income's taxed at 10% - a significant saving for higher and additional rate taxpayers.
The first won't be relevant unless your investments are huge.

[woofgang]

not that huge factor, thanks

[alanogden]

As I understand it when you want to put your own shares into an ISA you have to sell them and buy them back in the ISA. There will be costs to do this but you won't have to pay income tax on the dividends but there is a 10% tax on dividends that Gordon Brown introduced. Best check with your ISA provider.

[Gizmonster]

I was a bit uncertain on this ... however, having spoke to my accountant today, I decided to do some further research:
If you're a basic rate tax payer, there is no difference in the tax that you pay on the dividends, if your shares are in an ISA or not - the dividends are taxed at source, at a rate of 10%. The only advantage is to higher rate tax payers. If the shares are held in an ISA, then the tax payable remains at 10%, ; whereas if they are not in an ISA, the tax payable rockets up, viz: 32.5% if you're a higher rate taxpayer and 37.5% if you're an additional rate taxpayer.
Taken from:
http://www.which.co.uk/money/savings-and-investments/guides/stocks-and-shares-isas-explained/what-is-a-stocks-and-shares-isa/

I also rang my bank today to ask about transferring my shares in to an ISA and one of the questions I was asked was, if the shares were company shares. I answered, "no" to the question, so I didn't glean any further information from this, but I'm wondering if there are additional rules regarding this .... why else would they ask ??