Should marriage be taken out of the finance system?

kimlyn_2

This may be a stupid question,but what are the financial benefits of being married?I have been married for over a year now and there don't seem to be any more advantages to being married than there was when we were just living together.

Bagpuss1973

kimlyn wrote:

This may be a stupid question,but what are the financial benefits of being married?I have been married for over a year now and there don't seem to be any more advantages to being married than there was when we were just living together.

Well Kimlyn you won't find out unless you get divorced or you lose your partner! (Hopefully you won't have to find out!) Sad but true, the Government abolished the married tax allowance years ago!

It is all to do with pensions and things like that. If a person dies then their pension would probably (depending on the pension) be passed onto their spouse but if the couple were living together then it would stop regardless of the fact that the said couple might have lived together for forty years.

manthatcan

The percentage of marriages that end in divorce is often quoted by people against the idea of marriage, yet still think they should be entitled to the same rights.

Just a thought but has anybody ever done a study to find the amount of relationships that fail outside of marriage?

I'm sure it would be at least as high, and probably much higher than the divorce rate!

Mrs_pbradley936

kimlyn wrote:

This may be a stupid question,but what are the financial benefits of being married?I have been married for over a year now and there don't seem to be any more advantages to being married than there was when we were just living together.

If you are fairly young and newly married there will not be much of a difference in day to day living. However when you get older if you are still together you will be able to pass property and other assets between you without incurring tax. If one of you is in a lower tax band that person can have the money in their name and pay less tax. Also when one of you die the other can inherit without any tax because there is no inheritance tax between husband and wife.

Mrs_pbradley936

mitac wrote:

Everybody should treated as individuals ie husaband and wife are seperate tax entities., then it does not matter whether they are living to gether, gay couples or hubsband and wife. Equality rules
Did the conservatives try this or aim for this

:beer: :beer:

mitac

I think you mean a "flat tax" where everyone pays the same rate over a given allowance, and the administration is so much easier and cheaper so it saves all around. See this link:-


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax

sophie_maxwell

nelly wrote:

are you quoteing a pet shop boys song there?


If two people live together for 40 years, why should they have less rights than someone married for 1 day?

if a couple live together for 40 years they should make that promise to each other that it's forever, as if that isn't obvious :rotfl: I just can't imagine people in their 70s and 80s referring to each other as "my boyfriend" or "my girlfriend :eek: just plain wrong! :rotfl:

Martin_Edney

Bagpuss1973 wrote:

It is all to do with pensions and things like that. If a person dies then their pension would probably (depending on the pension) be passed onto their spouse but if the couple were living together then it would stop regardless of the fact that the said couple might have lived together for forty years.

This is a perfect example of why the law as it stands is unfair.

Let's imagine that my colleague and I start work on the same day, both earn the same throughout our lifetimes, and put the same amount of money into a company pension scheme (a contribution we're choosing to make from our own pockets).

Now let's say my colleague remains single throughout almost all of his/her working life, but I cohabit faithfully with one partner for 40 years. The year before retirement my colleague marries.

One year after we both retire, we both die. So my colleague's widow (who was married for only 2 years) will draw a widow's pension for the remaider of his/her life, while my partner of 42 years will receive nothing. Both I and my colleague have paid the same amount into our company pension scheme, but my colleague is receiving an extra benefit at no extra cost.

Doesn't seem fair to me. This is what I refer to as financial discimination - if we're both paying the same amount, surely we should both receive the same benefit.

Mrs_pbradley936

Then get married! That way you do not have to plead your case to anyone. Fairness has got nothing to do with it, legality has. For example you would be amazed at the number of people that do not know that marriage makes a previous will void. Thus there are huge numbers of grown up children of widows or widowers that find themselves disinherited if their parent remarries following the death of the other parent. Because of the law the new spouse takes precedence over any children or grandchildren that had previously been left anything. There have been threads about that on here and someone I knew spent about £3000 on solicitors contesting a will that saw his late father’s house go to his widow of a few months. The friend thought he was being magnanimous and offered to let the old lady live there until she died but was told “hard luck, nothing to do with you”. When she died the house went to her family who were not related to the man she had married. You can of course make sure that you make a new will after any re-marriage saying what you want but if you do not then hard luck because once again it is a victory for the legality of that “just a piece of paper.”.

sophie_maxwell

what if people said "i don't need a licence to drive" i'll just drive anyway? if a couple are committed to each other the natural thing (in my opinion! ) is to get married, I'd be worried about being in a relationship with a boyfriend who doesn't want to get married at all.

curriej99

So if a person owns a property and then a new partner moves in with them, and they split up a year later, the other partner then suddenly has the right to half the property? Seems a bit on the outrageously unfair side.
That kind of law would only make people live seperately, and the living-together 'trial period' would be undo-able.