Married couple state pension allowance

Raegan

If claiming married couple state pension, should the tax allowance still be classed as a single persons allowance?

molerat

Confused ? Are you talking about the pre 1935 birth allowance ?

p00hsticks

Raegan wrote: »

If claiming married couple state pension, should the tax allowance still be classed as a single persons allowance?

Like molerat, I'm confused by what you mean. Both state pension and tax allowance are for individuals, not joint, although the Marriange allowance does gived married couples / civil partners the facility to pass part of their personal allowance to the other half of the couple.

Raegan

My grandparents are both in their seventies. Neither of them have a private pension. My grandad gets full state pension allowance plus £4 a week pension credit. My grandmother gets 11p a week state pension. Yet the tax man is saying that my grandad is over the allowed earnings before paying tax.

bowlhead99

If grandfather is on the maximum state pension he could be on, with full basic entitlement plus serps plus s2p etc, that's over £250 a week which is £13k a year, and is over the £11k annual personal allowance that we all get.

If your grandmother isn't using all of her annual personal allowance, and they're married, she can give him 10% of hers so that instead of them both having £11000 allowance, she would get only 9900 and he would get £12100, reducing his tax bill because of having less taxable income in excess of the limit.

molerat

If he gets £4 pension credit that means his state pension is around £233, £12162 pa which is over the personal tax allowance.

zagfles

Raegan wrote: »

My grandparents are both in their seventies. Neither of them have a private pension. My grandad gets full state pension allowance plus £4 a week pension credit. My grandmother gets 11p a week state pension. Yet the tax man is saying that my grandad is over the allowed earnings before paying tax.

Strange as your Grandmother should be entitled to a state pension based on your Grandad's NI record, I presume they are married and have been for a long time? If he has a full basic state pension she should get about £71 pw. Unless there's something like residency issues etc?

See https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-through-partner

Raegan

They've been married for over 50 years and there are no issues with anything. Think we're going to have to look into it a bit more to make sure they are both getting everything that they are entitled too.

xylophone

https://www.savvywoman.co.uk/730/how-to-increase-your-state-pension-using-your-husbands-national-insurance-record/

Has your grandmother ever checked her personal situation with the Pension Service?

https://www.gov.uk/contact-pension-service

xylophone

See also https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn105.pdf p22.

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS48_Pension_Credit_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

Raegan

I'm not sure if she has. I think we're going to have a proper look into it and try and sort it all out.