Married Couple Savings Tax Saving Tip

Just to add a couple more things to the answers already posted.

1. I think the form is called R85 and your bank should be able to supply it.

It is also available from the Inland Revenue website here

2. Whatever her personal allowance is.
It's about £4745 this tax year, so you'd need a LOT of money to have that as income.

If your interest totals less than £4745 then you shouldn't pay any tax (by filling out a R85), if your interest totals between £4,745 and £6,765 you will only pay 10% tax, but tax will be automatically deducted at 20% so you will need to reclaim the additional 10% back at the end of the year by filling in a form R40. Anything over £6,765 is taxed at 20%. It is also worth noting that is savings interest is your only source of income and it comes more than your personal allowance it will probably all be taxed, so you will still be due some tax back. I don't think there is anyway around this.

All this probably sounds very complicated, but I'm told there is a helpsheet where you can work out how much tax you should pay on your savings coming out at the end of the month together with a new R85 form and a new leaflet on Bank and Building Society interest as part of the Inland Revenue's latest taxback campaign.

3. I believe that it is all simply treated as income and the same allowances apply (although rates are sometimes different e.g. earnings are taxed at 22% and savings at 20%).
I believe the answer is yes, she should not have to pay tax on dividends.

There is only an advantage if you are a higher-rate taxpayer. Dividend tax credit is deducted at source and is not reclaimable (even for non-taxpayers). Highre rate taxpayers need to declare this on the tax return and pay extra, so there is an obvious advantage there. However passing all your shares to a non-taxpaying spouse may not be the best thing to do as you also need to tax Captial Gains Tax into consideration. It may be better to share equity between the two of you to take full advantage of two lots of Capital Gains Tax allowance (one for each partner).

Does anyone know if you have to pay stamp duty on shares transferred between unmarried couples (or anyone else for that matter).

No, not if they are a gift. However, if you were to sell them then Stamp Duty is payable.

Help please!

Where do married couple joint accounts fit into this equation with tax relief?

Can you simply declare on your tax retrun that all or most of the savings belong to the lower rate tax payer or are separate accounts the only way to gain the benefit?

Can you simply declare on your tax retrun that all or most of the savings belong to the lower rate tax payer or are separate accounts the only way to gain the benefit?

No I don't think you can simply declare it.
The Inland Revenue take the view that joint accounts are split 50/50 for tax purposes (found that out when my husband and I had different tax rates).

You need to open a seperate account.