Marriage Allowance

Probably obvious when reading the fine detail, but we've just wasted an hour applying for marriage allowance. My wife earns just below the personal allowance and did last year. I earn well above it.
Nobody gave our circumstances as a scenario in all of the publicity hyp. surrounding this transfer.
It turns out to be a complete waste of time, because for last year I will get a cheque and my wife will become a taxpayer for the same amount.
Worst than that, I applied for the transfer to be ongoing. I have just gone on the website and cancelled the allowance transfer, only to be informed that it must now stay in place for the whole of this year. So my wife will pay tax this year as well, which I will have to pay her back for.

I am in a similar circumstance.

My husband gets the full allowance and I now pay £80 for the year.
So a net gain for us.

Any of the people apply from April got their £400? I was supposed to get £400+ but had £209 paid into my account today (Husband is self-employed so they must have details on file somewhere?!)

I'm assuming this is only for one year, so not sure if we'll get the other £200? I don't see why we wouldn't be eligible.

Did you get a letter or anything to say what was going off?

Consumerist

I don't think the op has told the full story in their post, see the thread on the Benefits and Tax Credits board.

If i was a gambler i would wager the op is the marriage allowance applicant, not actually the beneficiary. But happens to have received their spouses tax refund in their account.

Consumerist wrote: »

The amounts involved are:
2015/16: £210.00 (£1,050 tax allowance transferred)
2016/17: £220.00 (£1,100 tax allowance transferred)

If you did not receive the full amounts for any particular year then that will be because of your tax situation - not your partner's.

It does, however, seem odd that you were paid only £209 (presumably for 2015/16). Perhaps you owed HMRC £1 in tax for that year or, maybe, you only paid £209 in tax for that year; HMRC won't refund tax you haven't paid.

The vast majority of people basic rate taxpayers paid via PAYE underpay tax of upto £1.80 each year. This is due to the way that tax codes and PAYE are operated.

For example, someone with no other allowances/expenses or deductions in 2016/2017 and only the personal allowance of £11000 would have had a tax code of 1100L.

When this code is operated however the tax tables allow allowances of £11009, but when your records are assessed at the end of the year the calculation only allows for the actual amount of allowances due, so this £1.80, then shows up in the calculation.

If you have paid too much tax then this small underpayment is deducted from the refund.

If you've only underpaid by this £1.80 then you are deemed to have paid the correct amount of tax as this falls within HMRC's tolerances, and so is not payable.

This is most likely the reason why you only got £209 and not the £210 for 2015/2016.

So far 2016/2017 will likely not have been calculated. Calculationscan only start to be done for PAYE customers from 20/04/2017.

It's also possible that you've had the relief by way of a tax code adjustment in the 2016/2017 tax year.