Do you support the married couples tax break?

Former_MSE_Debs

Poll started 30 Sep 2013

The Government has announced plans from 2015 to allow married couples and civil partners (who aren’t 40% or 45% taxpayers) to transfer £1,000 of their personal allowance - the amount they can earn before tax - to their spouse.

In other words, a partner who doesn’t work or earns under the personal allowance (currently £9,440 for under 65s) could give the higher earning partner their allowance. This saves them paying 20% tax on it, meaning they’re £200 a year better off.

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cillitbanger

Single parents with children get CTC !!!!!!! You can't have it both ways :j

Fliss_M

Maybe wrong but mum tells me in the 80's your could transfer your whole allowance to the spouse. So a stay at home mum could give her whole allowance to her husband. Sounds more like it to me ;-) (not that we would benefit as we both work)

molley

Shame we don't know the marital status of each voter ..

molley

Fliss_M wrote: »

Maybe wrong but mum tells me in the 80's your could transfer your whole allowance to the spouse. So a stay at home mum could give her whole allowance to her husband. Sounds more like it to me ;-) (not that we would benefit as we both work)

I believe that was the case or ,at least ,something very similar,before they split things up and treated each as individuals . Trouble might have been that "non-married" couples did not benefit from this arrangement .

telsco

How about giving single childless people a bit of a tax break instead of subsidising every other *bleep*.

Bennifred

Fliss_M wrote: »

Maybe wrong but mum tells me in the 80's your could transfer your whole allowance to the spouse. So a stay at home mum could give her whole allowance to her husband. Sounds more like it to me ;-) (not that we would benefit as we both work)

Must have been in the early '80s - by the time I gave up full-time work to be a stay-at-home-mum in late '86 there were no tax advantages to marriage. I wish there had been! Would have made life a bit easier.
It would be great if personal tax allowances were transferable between a married couple - not just for parents, but if for any reason one half of the married couple can't work eg ill-health or disability. If two people are having to live on one income, then at least being able to use both their personal tax allowances would be immensely helpful.

WelshGandalf

It's not really a "married tax allowance" - it's an allowance for married couples who don't earn large amounts (basic tax rate payers) where one pays tax and the other doesn't.

This basically boils down to either couples who have one stay-at-home parent or one part-time worker (probably because they are spending a lot of time looking after kids/a relative). These are all things that the government should be encouraged - in the former case as kids brought up that way on average turn out better (and hence contribute to society more), in the latter case it's better for the family to be looking after them than the state.

It helps to counteract the unfairness of where 1 person earning £40k gets quite a bit less money than 2 earning £20k each.

As for single childless people who aren't on benefits - as with everyone else working you've gained from the coalition thanks to increased tax allowances.

Finally I don't get all this "it's discriminatory against group X" (childless couples, unmarried couples etc.) argument. Is Jobseeker's allowance discriminatory to me as I am not currently seeking a job?

economum

This won't benefit a young married couple both working full-time on minimum wage and it won't benefit couples unable to get full-time work where both are earning under £9500. It's hard to see how it will benefit families at all - the main beneficiaries will probably be older couples where one has taken early retirement.

Tigsteroonie

I don't understand why the government (HMRC, DWP) are happy to class Marley & me as a couple for the purposes of tax credits and benefits, yet insist we must marry to take advantage of this tax break. We are either a committed couple, or we are not.

Gordon_the_Moron

The average cost of a wedding now is £21939
With this tax break, it will now pay for itself in 109 years.

If you didn't guess, I voted I don't care.