Seven Basis Points

An index tracker now costs seven basis points: £14 a year on a £20,000 ISA. The fee war is over. The money moved somewhere quieter. Choose the dollar line of that same fund instead of the sterling line and that one click costs about £139. Hold it in the wrong wrapper and the eventual tax bill runs to four figures. Let a fund sit outside HMRC's reporting list and a capital gain becomes income, taxed at nearly double the rate. None of it appears on the factsheet you were shown. Seven Basis Points follows one ordinary purchase, £20,000 into a stocks and shares ISA, through the machinery the marketing never mentions: the wrapper, the domicile, the currency line, the tax treatment, and the day a fund closes under you. Inside:

• Why everything you own is Irish, and what a 1997 treaty is worth to you every year
• Reporting funds: the government spreadsheet that decides whether you pay 24% or 45%
• The five costs of ownership, advertised in inverse order of size
• April 2027: pensions, inheritance tax, and the drawdown order that stopped being true
• Leverage: the arithmetic that beats you, in fifty days that go nowhere