Marriage Allowance

sheramber

Jami74 wrote: »

:eek:

We applied the beginning of last year through the HMRC website and I'm pretty sure the money went directly into our bank. There weren't any deductions. Seems odd to pay tax on a tax rebate.

It is VAT - not income tax- which is charged by the third party company because they are VAT registered.

Neither the admin charge nor the VAT are anything to do with HMRC.

If someone uses a third party- claims company- to lodge their claim that company charge for doing it.

They get you to sign a mandate so that HMRC send the refund to them so they can deduct
their fee and send the person the balance.

However, that mandate remains on the HMRC record until cancelled and all further refunds, whether claimed by them or the taxpayer himself, automatically goes direct to them. They deduct their fees before sending on the balance.

People do not realise it is not a one off but the mandate continues until they cancel it.

Cumbria_Collie

I vaguely knew about this but did nothing about it until the article. Wow, dead easy to do, tax code changed almost immediately and 2 cheques totalling over 600 quid! brilliant!

brewerdave

I'm sure that this has been answered before ,but couldn't find anything using search. Currently I'm the recipient of £1250 of marriage allowance as her indoors is way below the taxable threshold.

My wife is to claim her deferred SP in the Summer. We are pleasantly surprised at the initial quoted weekly amount before the extra for deferral ,which we won't have confirmed until ~ August. HOWEVER, a fag packet calculation suggests that her total taxable pensions this tax year, will creep over the £11250 but not over £12500.
Will the taxman allow me to keep the allowance, collecting any tax due from my wife's small final salary pension? Or will they remove the marriage allowance from my code, and give back to my wife so that she pays no tax?

Obviously in the next full tax year, I will have to "give up" the allowance as her total pensions will be ~ £14k.:(

polymaff

The only "numbers" disqualification issue with MAT is if either of the two parties are - or would be as a result of opting for MAT - classified as a higher-rate taxpayer.

HMRC have been wrong about the relevance of the Personal Allowance from the start.

Its only relevance is that it is one of several factors which determine how profitable MAT will be to the couple concerned.

Spinali

Hi
we have just applied also for MTA and we have been charged £251.05 for 'processing fees' when we should have received £660.14. Apparently this is a third party company who have dealt with our application, even though I followed the link through the government website when first applying. We have not had any letters warning us of this charge, just received a cheque through yesterday with the deductions made. There is an address for the company (Marriage Allowance Ltd t/a, Marriage Tax Rebate, PO Box 10521, Leicestershire, LE16 0HE) but there is no contact number. Does anybody know if this is legal?
Thanks

AnotherJoe

Spinali wrote: »

Hi
we have just applied also for MTA and we have been charged £251.05 for 'processing fees' when we should have received £660.14. Apparently this is a third party company who have dealt with our application, even though I followed the link through the government website when first applying. We have not had any letters warning us of this charge, just received a cheque through yesterday with the deductions made. There is an address for the company (Marriage Allowance Ltd t/a, Marriage Tax Rebate, PO Box 10521, Leicestershire, LE16 0HE) but there is no contact number. Does anybody know if this is legal?
Thanks

I am confident you did NOT follow the link from a government site.

You clicked on the wrong link, probably the top link in a google search, or perhaps a face book link, that lead to an ad designed to make the unwary think it was a government site with no doubt a disclaimer down on the bottom footnotes in a font that would require the Hubble Space telescope to read it.

These sort of scams exist for passports, tax refunds and all other sorts of official documents.
Pay more attention in future.

polymaff

Spinali wrote: »

... even though I followed the link through the government website when first applying.

I very much doubt it. At present there about three posts a week on MSE from folk who have been fooled in this way. If you can describe the path you followed using screen-shots or page saves, you'd be doing a service. As for 'legal', if at some point you accepted the terms and conditions of the agent, you'll have a hard time getting your money back.

You may also have given this agent enduring power to deal with HMRC "on your behalf". Check, asap, with HMRC that any such authority is cancelled - asap.


The company you mention is only six months old and is run by two individuals described as Chartered Accountants. They are also involved with other fairly new companies dealing with tax and other claims.


An expensive lesson.

sheramber

This is the Gov.UK page with the link

https://www.gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance

Is the page you used?

Spinali

I'm sure I went through this link. Will ring HMRC tomorrow to see if I can get any more info. I certainly didn't sign anything to agree to a third party acting for us.😕

polymaff

Spinali wrote: »

I'm sure I went through this link. Will ring HMRC tomorrow to see if I can get any more info. I certainly didn't sign anything to agree to a third party acting for us.😕

Look in your browser history. If it hasn't been flushed it'll allow you to see what you actually did that day.


Ignore my advice, if you like.