I am sorry if a similar question has been posted. I have tried to use the in-app chat, but it seems rather unhelpful. Due to multiple agents taking the same case from time to time they lost the track of the entire query and only answered the question without considering the complete scenario.
My case is: I contributed 20k towards my current year Cash ISA. Based on the flexible policy, can I withdraw 4k and deposit it into my lifetime ISA with another provider without affecting the allowance of the current tax year?
Yes you can. There is no on-the-fly reconciliation between ISA providers. It happens at the end of the tax year when all providers submit figures to HMRC.
If your net final situation shows that you at no point exceeded your allowance, then it will be OK, from all that I have read.
Disagree with this. Flexible ISA’s can only have the withdrawn money deposited back into the same providers ISA. Otherwise the providers cannot control the £20k limit. To the HMRC you will have deposited £24K.