It is not every day that you find a financial outfit praising the Government for cutting back a thicket of red tape and in the next breath thanking it for holding back the scissors for a year.

The Investment Management Association – speaking for packaged investment organisations – did just that yesterday. The topic was PEPs and ISAs. Last year the Treasury said it would scrap most of the intricate rules that baffle people quite needlessly from the new tax year starting on April 6.

Yesterday Ed Balls, the Treasury Minister who deals with these things, said the date will be April next year. The investment managers were heartily relieved. They could never have got their systems sorted out in time. Better wait for a year than make a hash of it now.

So for one more year you must remember the difference between a "maxi" and a "mini" ISA. That means you can buy a "maxi" for up to #7,000 in a year and it has to go into shares or bonds or a packaged product investing in them.

If you prefer to put cash into a safety–first bank or building society account – with tax–free interest – the limit is a "mini" #3,000. But you can still put the remaining #4,000 into a stock market ISA if you like.

From April, 2008, that distinction will go. So will the nebulous one between ISAs and the remaining PEPs. Good work, Mr Balls.

When the time comes, you can bet the IMA's members will go flat out to persuade people who have built up a useful nest–egg in mini ISAs over the years to switch into stock market ISAs.

When they do, let's hope they spell out clearly that mini–ISA savers who do this will lose the tax break on their income. ISAs protect interest from income tax – but not dividends derived from shares.

The tax shelter on stock market ISAs, and PEPs come to that, is from capital gains tax – and that matters only if you cash in investments showing a profit or more than #8,800 in a single tax year.

Thrifty folk who have been able to tuck away a maxi ISA year after year may be sitting on big capital gains, all tax–free, a valuable privilege. For smaller investors it is usually neither here nor there.

Remember, too, if you never get round to cashing your ISA, it is liable to inheritance tax, along with your house.