Marriage Allowance

Dazed_and_confused

It is a tax rate specifically for savings interest.

Once your Personal Allowance is used up any remaining income them gets taxed. For someone who is UK resident and working or receiving a pension this will normally be 20%, then 40% and finally 45%.

But if you have a lower income you can make use of the savings starter rate where upto £5,000 of interest is taxed at 0%.

It's only after the savings starter rate is used up that the savings nil rate (aka Personal Savings Allowance) comes into play.

Taxation of savings interest can get complicated but Low Income Tax Reform Group (LITRG) have some really helpful guides on their website.

Tinyshoes

Tinyshoes wrote: »

Another one here where the marriage allowance is not showing on husbands tax return for 2018/19, he has only worked PAYE for that year and no self employment but it is showing a 3 figure tax bill. A quick calculation on my part show possibly a £2 short fall on his tax bill can only assume it is the missing MA that is causing the bigger underpayment showing.

He has submitted his tax return for now and will have to ring them in the new year before paying.

I have not worked at all for years and since claiming MA it has automatically included in his calculations except the first year I claimed it. I have never filled in a Self assessment myself as have never needed to I hope this won't be needed from now on.

Would be interested to hear how this has been resolved for others.

Dazed_and_confused wrote: »

It would be helpful if you let us (and others who read this in the future) know the outcome.

Merry Christmas

Just to update the outcome, the Marriage Allowance is showing on the calculation sent through the post without any intervention ie. no phone calls on our part and my OH has now received a tax rebate of £76.

I think the more confusing part for us is it looks like his tax code did not update for the tax year 2018/2019 to include both the increase in Personal Allowance and Marriage Allowance like it has automatically in previous years.

If this makes sense to anyone this is why the amount that it said was underpaid when filling in his Self Assessment online didn't match the full amount of Marriage Allowance. And why we thought this was a true underpayment. If it had been the exact figure of Marriage Allowance we may have made the connection straight away.

Heedtheadvice

Thank you for posting that update Tinyshoes.
Obviously there can be several reasons why errors occur but it is good to know that you have at lease documentary evidence of your calculation.


Having to send out paper copies such as you have must entail extra work for HMRC as well as 'customer' frustration. They are making a rod for their own back.


My account Current Position shows HMRC owe me a fairly hefty lump sum but the calc online still says I owe tax. I do not believe either!!


@Tinyshoes how long did that take for you to get the calc posted to you?

Dazed_and_confused

Part of the complication with Marriage Allowance is that the eligibility criteria means that a married couple both earning say £40,000 are both eligible to apply for or be the recipient of Marriage Allowance.

The tax return does not include the facility for someone to say they are the recipient of Marriage Allowance as that could potentially mean one partner fills in the return as the recipient and this results in the other person getting an unexpected tax bill they haven't agreed to.

So as it stands only the person giving away the allowance can record this themselves on their tax return.

Clearly not an ideal situation but I suspect implementation of what seemed simple to David Cameron was trickier to achieve than originally envisaged.

polymaff

Dazed_and_confused wrote: »

The tax return does not include the facility for someone to say they are the recipient of Marriage Allowance as that could potentially mean one partner fills in the return as the recipient and this results in the other person getting an unexpected tax bill they haven't agreed to.

More to the point, MAT - as implemented - is irrelevant to a (potential) beneficiary's tax return.

Tinyshoes

Heedtheadvice wrote: »

Thank you for posting that update Tinyshoes.
Obviously there can be several reasons why errors occur but it is good to know that you have at lease documentary evidence of your calculation.


Having to send out paper copies such as you have must entail extra work for HMRC as well as 'customer' frustration. They are making a rod for their own back.


My account Current Position shows HMRC owe me a fairly hefty lump sum but the calc online still says I owe tax. I do not believe either!!


@Tinyshoes how long did that take for you to get the calc posted to you?

OH filed his tax return online on 22/12/19 and received the SA302 Self Assessment Tax Calculation through the post around New Year it is dated 24/12/19 so obviously postal timings will have been different.

The refund cheque is dated 30/12/19 and we received that sometime last week unsure exactly when as we were away and came back to a pile of post, this was a very welcome letter to find.

I will add OH has not logged back onto his account to see what it says online as he has an aversion to the self assessment system as it is and I know he will just assume this paperwork is final say and correct.

What threw us this year is the fact that when he has done his self assessment last couple of years it has included him receiving the Marriage allowance in the calculation before SA302 was received in the post. Last year 2017/18 it showed a £1 underpayment which he paid on the day he submitted his SA online. We both assumed it was just a rounding of figures that had caused the discrepancy and all the figures matched when the SA302 came through the post last year.

I don't understand why this year was different except for timing, nothing else has changed. As I said previously he usually doesn't submit the return this early, it's usually not until mid/3rd week of January.

I hope you get your calculations sorted.

Heedtheadvice

Thanks @Tiny.
Actually received my updated calc by post today too. MAT has been corrected...but not online!

Dazed_and_confused

You would be much better starting your own thread as you and everyone else reading risk getting confused as this thread is purely about Marriage Allowance.

Whereas your in-laws are old enough to benefit from the much more generous Married Couple's Allowance.

Have you actually checked he isn't already receiving this? Or have they just got married?

And it is one or the other, not both.

Dazed_and_confused

You are getting two totally different things mixed up.

575 is only necessary if he wants to transfer surplus Married Couple's Allowance to his wife. Which seems pointless from what you've posted.

Have you checked if he is already receiving Married Couple's Allowance?

Dazed_and_confused

If he completes a 575 you will get in a mess. You are confusing HMRC and they are in turn confusing you!!

Why not just tell us what his tax code is. And how much per week his State Pension is. That will give a large hint as to whether he is already getting Married Couple's Allowance.