The Child Trust Fund (CTF)
Children born after 31 August 2002 and before 3 January 2011 were entitled to a Child Trust Fund (CTF) account provided they met the necessary conditions. Children born after the later date are no longer eligible for CTF payments.
HMRC has recently published the latest edition of the CTF Bulletin. The Bulletin confirms the government’s intention to allow the transfer of savings from CTFs to Junior ISAs. It is hoped that this option will be available from April 2015.
For the 2014-15 tax year, the CTF subscription limit is capped at £3,840 to 30 June 2014 and increases to £4,000 from 1 July 2014. This mirrors the annual subscription limit for the Junior ISAs.
The Junior ISAs were introduced to encourage children to save money and will go some way in making up for the phasing out of the CTFs. However, the Junior ISA savings accounts are run by private providers and the government do not contribute public funds.