Marriage Allowance

ChrisEG81

Good Morning, my wife applied Marriage Tax Allowance through the website Marriage Tax Refund not realizing that they take 30% of payments received then forward the reduced cheque to us. We did not realize there should be no cost claiming marriage allowance.

What can we do about stopping this and can we reclaim for this year?

Silverbird65

The same happened to my husband regarding claiming for uniform. He ended up with about £20. Robbed. Best to do everything yourself via HMRC gov site. Sorry for you're loss of repayment.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

ChrisEG81 said:

Good Morning, my wife applied Marriage Tax Allowance through the website Marriage Tax Refund not realizing that they take 30% of payments received then forward the reduced cheque to us. We did not realize there should be no cost claiming marriage allowance.

What can we do about stopping this and can we reclaim for this year?

Anyone who applies for Marriage Allowance either pays the same amount of tax or more, they can never pay less as a result of applying.

It is the recipient (you) who gets the refund.  So you must have authorised the refund to go to this company otherwise HMRC would have sent it to you.

ChrisEG81

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

ChrisEG81 said:

Good Morning, my wife applied Marriage Tax Allowance through the website Marriage Tax Refund not realizing that they take 30% of payments received then forward the reduced cheque to us. We did not realize there should be no cost claiming marriage allowance.

What can we do about stopping this and can we reclaim for this year?

Anyone who applies for Marriage Allowance either pays the same amount of tax or more, they can never pay less as a result of applying.

It is the recipient (you) who gets the refund.  So you must have authorised the refund to go to this company otherwise HMRC would have sent it to you.

We understand that now but at the time of claiming my wife who claimed through the site Marriage Tax Refund was not aware that they take 30% plus VAT also was not aware if she had claimed through gov.uk there would not be a no 30% plus VAT taken off the cheque.  Sites like Marriage Tax Refund should not be allowed to operate if gov.uk offer a free service of the same kind.

unholyangel

ChrisEG81 said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

ChrisEG81 said:

Good Morning, my wife applied Marriage Tax Allowance through the website Marriage Tax Refund not realizing that they take 30% of payments received then forward the reduced cheque to us. We did not realize there should be no cost claiming marriage allowance.

What can we do about stopping this and can we reclaim for this year?

Anyone who applies for Marriage Allowance either pays the same amount of tax or more, they can never pay less as a result of applying.

It is the recipient (you) who gets the refund.  So you must have authorised the refund to go to this company otherwise HMRC would have sent it to you.

We understand that now but at the time of claiming my wife who claimed through the site Marriage Tax Refund was not aware that they take 30% plus VAT also was not aware if she had claimed through gov.uk there would not be a no 30% plus VAT taken off the cheque.  Sites like Marriage Tax Refund should not be allowed to operate if gov.uk offer a free service of the same kind.

If they didn't make their fee's clear then report them to appropriate body (trading standards and/or any supervisory body they have). 

I'd also recommend campagining your MP. Lots of people are affected by these companies and I agree that many of them shouldn't be allowed to operate. Not all of them are bad, some are really fair & transparent in their dealings. But then those ones usually don't use various tricks to con people into signing over years worth of repayments, no matter how the repayment arose.  

sheramber

ChrisEG81 said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

ChrisEG81 said:

Good Morning, my wife applied Marriage Tax Allowance through the website Marriage Tax Refund not realizing that they take 30% of payments received then forward the reduced cheque to us. We did not realize there should be no cost claiming marriage allowance.

What can we do about stopping this and can we reclaim for this year?

Anyone who applies for Marriage Allowance either pays the same amount of tax or more, they can never pay less as a result of applying.

It is the recipient (you) who gets the refund.  So you must have authorised the refund to go to this company otherwise HMRC would have sent it to you.

We understand that now but at the time of claiming my wife who claimed through the site Marriage Tax Refund was not aware that they take 30% plus VAT also was not aware if she had claimed through gov.uk there would not be a no 30% plus VAT taken off the cheque.  Sites like Marriage Tax Refund should not be allowed to operate if gov.uk offer a free service of the same kind.

Your wife agreed to the Terms and Conditions when completing the application form.

• You authorise us to act on yours and your partner’s behalf to claim back a tax refund for you both.
• You authorise us to be able to contact HMRC on both your behalf’s to chase your claim and pursue HMRC to speedily get you back what you are legally entitled to.
• Confirm that you are happy for 10% of your personal tax free allowance to be transferred from “Partner 1” to “Partner 2”. This means “Partner 2” will be paying less tax each year until you contact HMRC to tell them of any change of circumstance.
• Confirm that you instruct us to backdate this allowance from the start of your marriage or civil partnership. This can only go so far back as 5th April 2015.
• Confirm that you wish for us to claim this back in a cash refund amount from HMRC on your behalf’s and we deduct our fee from the total refund for whatever reason it may arise.
• Confirm that our fee is deducted from each individual payment/cheque received.
• ................................
• We operate a strict NO REFUND NO FEE policy.
• If we cannot get you a refund, regardless of how much work has been completed, there will be no fee owed to us.
• If we get you a refund our set fee is 30% plus (VAT), subject to a minimum deduction of £99 plus (VAT). The minimum deduction means that if your refund is £99 or below then we retain that payment. It does not mean that you have to pay £99 if it is less then this amount. You will never have to pay us out of your own pocket.
• You, Partner 1 and partner 2, authorise HMRC to send your refund directly to Marriage Tax Allowance Limited for us to deduct the agreed fee above and forward your refund to you.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Maybe the question is can the wife (applicant) authorise the husband's tax refund to go to a third party?

Seems unusual to me for one person to be able to agree someone else's tax refund can be paid over to a third party.

zagfles

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Maybe the question is can the wife (applicant) authorise the husband's tax refund to go to a third party?

Seems unusual to me for one person to be able to agree someone else's tax refund can be paid over to a third party.

Good point - the PP should contact HMRC and let them know he didn't authorise any third party to take a cut of his refund. His wife can't authorise a third party to deal with his tax affairs surely?

These shyster sites used to exist for all sorts of stuff, passport renewals, EHICs, driving licences etc, until Google got their act together and stopped showing them as top searches. But I think the likes of Faceache etc will still show adverts from them...

sheramber

I wonder what the company snd to HMRC  to authorise the repayment to be  made to them.
Would they not requires  the husband's signature ? 

IanJowett

I am self employed and my taxable income is sometimes just under the allowance but sometimes over it. My wife's employed income is a reasonable amount over the allowance. How are the backdated years calculated?