Married tax allowance claim.

peteuk

Just wanting some advice. 
I worked overseas for three years 2016-2019, although I still paid British Tax and NI. (Due to the nature of my employment) My wife however found employment through a UK company but was tax free, but not NI. We returned in Sept 2019 and had a few issues with her tax.   The first month she was put on emergency tax (as expected) but when we tried to claim it back we were informed to wait until the end of the financial year. Which we did, when we spoke to HMRC we were informed that we owed a small amount in income tax (Less than £100) but dont worry that will be added to your ext year tax. Basically she had not worked overseas long enough to qualify for income tax exception and so they had recalculated her whole tax year. 
We then had a letter, followed by a payment of her whole income tax returned.  When we questioned this, they had reapplied the tax exception from Apr - Sep and then recalculated her income as less than her tax level.  
My question is two 
1) Can I/We/She claim tax back for married couples for the year 2019-2020 as her UK wage was less than 12000, and as such she did not pay tax,. 
2) Can we claim the same tax refund for the period we were overseas and she wasn't paying UK income tax. 

Hope that makes sense. 
Pete

Dazed_and_C0nfused

"We" cannot do anything.

The person who applies for Marriage Allowance can only ever pay the same amount of tax or more.  It is the person receiving Marriage Allowance who can pay less tax.

Who do you think should apply?  If this is your wife then what does her P60 for the year to 5 April 2020 show her taxable income to be?

Other than that did she have any other taxable income (ignoring small amounts of untaxed interest) in that tax year?

peteuk

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Who do you think should apply?  If this is your wife then what does her P60 for the year to 5 April 2020 show her taxable income to be?

Other than that did she have any other taxable income (ignoring small amounts of untaxed interest) in that tax year?

I was thinking that as she didnt use her 1250L tax allowance it could be applied to mine (correct me if I am wrong) 
Her 2020 2019-2020 tax year wage was £8000 and she has no other taxable income. During the period of 2017-2019 her income was £24000 per year but was not paying UK tax.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

If her only taxable income in 2019:20 was £8,000 then she is eligible to apply and you would see your tax liability for that tax year reduced by £250 (assuming you had to pay that much to start with).

She would apply, you don't do anything apart from bank the money when it comes through from HMRC.