Transfering surplus tax free allowance from patner?

needmorehelp

Hi,

My partner and I are both in our 40's and live together. Is it possible since she is a non taxpayer for her tax free allowance to be credited against my taxable income?

Many thanks

Pennywise

No.

The only thing you can do is "create" some taxable income for her, i.e. transfer savings or investment income etc into her name to set against her allowance, or if you're self employed, bring her in as a partner or shareholder/director to give her an income.

This is one of the absurdities of the current tax system and needs changing. It can't be right that your household pays more tax because you work and she doesn't. If you both worked, earning the same proportional gross pay, so total pre-tax income was the same, then you'd pay less tax. Unfortunately, you are very limited as to what you can do about it, except perhaps for lobbying your prospective MP candidates when they come canvassing.

fengirl_2

Noooo, lets not go back to the dark days of joint taxation!

RayWolfe

Agreed! One of the few things that Mrs T. got right.

Pennywise

Who said anything about joint taxation. In the dying days of the married couples allowance, all that was needed was a joint election from both parties to say how much of the allowance was to be applied to each - that's a long way from the dark days of joint taxation. Transferring personal allowances from one person to another would be remarkably simple to set up - absolutely nothing to do with loss of confidentiality etc between partners.

Anyway, with tax credits and other state benefits, we already have the majority of the working population subject to completing returns of "household" income, so the principal behind the abolishing of joint taxation has already been breached many years ago.

fengirl_2

Yes, but in an abusive relationship, whats to stop a husband, say, from forcing his wife to sign?

Pennywise

fengirl wrote: »

Yes, but in an abusive relationship, whats to stop a husband, say, from forcing his wife to sign?

Is that really a legitimate reason? In an abusive relationship, surely there's a lot worse going on than transferring an unused personal allowance - and how does that harm the transferree anyway - if they're not using it, what is the harm in transferring it? Whilst I am in full support of steps to protect the vulnerable, I really do think that your example is a fairly extreme case and if that were the only reason such an idea would be stopped, then we have a situation where the vast majority would be disproportionately affected by trying to prevent harm to a very small minority.

bootman

I would like joint allowances. I stay home to look after my son and have small evening job. We don't get any credits at all except the old fashioned child benefit.

Poor husband works every hour god sends and Mr Tax man takes a huge whack, He is on a good wage but works out less take home than 2 average wages. It would be great if he could have my unused allowance.

happyrichard

:eek: joint taxation- leave it in the past.