Married Couples Allowance

cacti

Although I have paid tax all my life I am not very 'well up' in all the rules. I have always paid tax as a single person and when I married in 1995, I continued paying as a single person. My husband was also taxed as a single person, no dependants or anything. I am now 63 and have a state and local government pension on which I pay tax. My husband is 77 and has a state pension and a very small private pension. He pays no tax. I have recently come across the Married Couples Allowance and believe, ( I may be wrong), that it can be transferred to the spouse if not used, if you see what I mean. My husband has never claimed this allowance. Can anyone tell me if this is true, and if so, how do I go about it? Can it be back-dated to previous years?

McKneff

There is such a thing as Married Couples Allowance and your OH would be eligible for this becaus of his age.
Im sure someone will be along with the figures but you wouldnt be able to claim your allowance and Married Couples allowance.

You would have to decide which would be more beneficial.

(google it and see what comes up on the .gov website.

margaretclare

To get the married tax allowance one of the couple must have been born before April 1935. When we got married in 2002 we qualified for this because DH was born end of December 1934, so we just squeezed into it.

For a number of years we split it between us to set against our individual pensions incomes. This is done by getting in touch with the husband's Tax Office because he is the one who has to apply, and he needs to write a letter saying he wants to 'give' you half, or a proportion, of the tax allowance which would otherwise go to him.

This year, however, I'm not paying tax at all because of rise in age-related allowances. DH is still paying tax on his annuity, so I offered to give him back my half. We contacted his tax office and it was done.

BTW, you do get your basic tax allowance as well, the one that goes up at age 65 and again at age 75 (although this may change now we have a new Chancellor).

McKneff

My apologies for some duff info.

zygurat789

You can also transfer only half of the allowance, that's isn't it?

margaretclare

zygurat789 wrote: »

You can also transfer only half of the allowance, that's isn't it?

Probably. That's certainly what we did. We split it equally.

dzug1

Whatever is transferable should be backdatable to the year your husband was 75

zygurat789

dzug1 wrote: »

Whatever is transferable should be backdatable to the year your husband was 75

Married Couple's allowance was available to a couple, one of whom was at least 65 by 5/4/02.
You can only claim back for the last 6 years, I think this is from 6/4/2004 when the basic allowance was £572.50 (only half of which is claimable). From age 75 in 2004/5 the basic allowance was £579.50.
Get claiming now you could be due over £1,000