Marriage Allowance

polymaff

Purplehaze58 wrote: »

I no longer work and put in a claim to HMRC for the Marraige tax allowance. I stopped work on 31/3/17. I had paid tax for the 2 previous years as I had gone above my tax free allowance.
I thought they had transferred my tax allowance to my husband from April 2017 as before this we were not eligible to do it.

Why weren't you eligible in the previous years?

Consumerist

Purplehaze58 wrote: »

Even if it is their fault that they paid him a rebate they shouldn’t have paid? It was them who messed up my claim for Marraige tax allowance. You expect HMRC to know what they are doing.....

There was a time when you could pretty much rely on HMRC to do things correctly but, sadly, that is no longer the case.

HMRC has extensive powers even if they make mistakes. If, however, repaying the rebate would cause undue financial hardship, you can ask if they could make an arrangement or to collect the monies owed over the following tax year by adjusting his tax code.

Consumerist

Milligac wrote: »

Can married persons tax allowance be claimed if your spouse doesn’t work at all please?

To claim Marriage Allowance the donor (non-taxpayer) only needs to have a National Insurance number (whether working or not) and the spouse needs to be only a Basic-Rate taxpayer for the year(s) claimed.

Purplehaze58

polymaff wrote: »

Why weren't you eligible in the previous years?

Because in the previous 2 years I was working so had no tax allowance left to transfer to my husband.

Purplehaze58

Consumerist wrote: »

There was a time when you could pretty much rely on HMRC to do things correctly but, sadly, that is no longer the case.

HMRC has extensive powers even if they make mistakes. If, however, repaying the rebate would cause undue financial hardship, you can ask if they could make an arrangement or to collect the monies owed over the following tax year by adjusting his tax code.

Yes they are doing that from April next year. I have put in a formal complaint as I honestly beleive this is wrong... a government financial department should get things right. I’m quite finance savvy so if I got caught by this there are going to be many many people in the same situation through no fault of their own.
HMRC can’t even provide me with a copy of what I actually claimed for, not even a transcript of my on line form. That is just wrong. I went online today to look at the claim form for MTA and in my personal account it still states ‘We notice that you may be able to claim for previous years.....’ errmmmm.... MAY BE able to claim suggests to
me that they CHECK before doing it. Obviously they don’t, which again is wrong. All I can say is thank god it’s only 2 years previous that is claimable!

polymaff

Purplehaze58 wrote: »

Because in the previous 2 years I was working so had no tax allowance left to transfer to my husband.

I thought that you would say that. That does not make you ineligible.

So, unless there is something else you haven't mentioned, you WERE eligible for MAT for all three years.

Which may explain what happened.

Purplehaze58

polymaff wrote: »

I thought that you would say that. That does not make you ineligible.

So, unless there is something else you haven't mentioned, you WERE eligible for MAT for all three years.

Which may explain what happened.

No I wasn’t. I had earned more than my tax allowance so had paid tax. If I had earned less than 11000 or whatever it was the. There would have been some tax I could have transferred to my husband. But as I earned more than 11000 there was no tax allowance left to transfer 10% of it to him. I was working full time in 2015-2016 and they still gave my husband 10% of my tax allowance to him even though I’d earned 21k and there was no spare tax allowance to give him.

polymaff

polymaff wrote: »

I thought that you would say that. That does not make you ineligible.

So, unless there is something else you haven't mentioned, you WERE eligible for MAT for all three years.

Which may explain what happened.

Purplehaze58 wrote: »

No I wasn’t. I had earned more than my tax allowance so had paid tax. If I had earned less than 11000 or whatever it was the. There would have been some tax I could have transferred to my husband. But as I earned more than 11000 there was no tax allowance left to transfer 10% of it to him. I was working full time in 2015-2016 and they still gave my husband 10% of my tax allowance to him even though I’d earned 21k and there was no spare tax allowance to give him.

I'm sorry, but you are completely wrong.

Do you want to learn, or just rant?

Are you UK-resident for tax purposes?

Purplehaze58

polymaff wrote: »

I'm sorry, but you are completely wrong.

Do you want to learn, or just rant?

Are you UK-resident for tax purposes?

I’m not ranting... you asked a question so I explained. Yes Im a UK resident born and bred. I know I could have still transferred some allowance to him but why would I do that when I had used all of my tax allowance up, I would then owe the tax man as per the letters I got. Please teach me where I am misunderstanding. I’m not ranting truly.

JpR_2

The recipient of the allowance transfer cannot be paying higher rate income tax or the transfer fails. I filled in my Tax Return for 16/17 and now have a tax bill of £220 to pay even though I'm not paying higher rate tax. Several places ( both on MSE and gov.uk ) refer instead to an upper limit for 'income' (£45000 in 16/17). I had dividend and savings income that _just_ pushed me over £45k and the tax allowances for those separately meant I didn't pay higher rate tax. The text of the 2014 Finance Act, which introduced MA, refers to higher rate tax and explicitly mentions savings and dividend income. The £45k references appear to just be lazy shorthand but HMRC seem to applied that limit anyway. Other allowances weren't mentioned, and I don't use them, but CGT allowance and Rent a Room might also cause difficulties for those near the higher rate threshold.

Any advice? I suspect getting HMRC to change is unlikely.