Married person allowence £1260

Trevor3153

After reading about the transfer of the above I completed the forms and within 2 weeks received a new tax code and a cheque for £773. However, today my wife has received letters from the tax office saying she has not paid enough over the last 5 years and they want her to pay back the following:
17/18 £232
18/19 £239
19/20 £242
20/21 £251
21/22 £189 
A total of £1153
Is this correct, my yearly income from work and old age pension is approx £19.5k.

[Deleted User]

Was your wife a taxpayer? If so there would have been absolutely no benefit in her transferring any of her personal allowance to you in that her tax would have increased by the same amount as yours decreased.

sheramber

I assume you mean Marriage Allowance.

Marriage Allowance works by reducing one person's personal allowance- in your case your wife- and giving these   allowances as a credit to the other party- you.

If the person transferring the allowance does not need all the allowances then it is a benefit.

But , if the person transferring the allowance paid tax on their income, then they will be due to pay more tax because of the loss of allowances.

Trevor3153

Thanks for the info. Must admit we just completed the form on line and received confirmation so assumed she qualified. To update just spent 40 mins on phone to them and we are returning the cheque and we are reverting to the original situation so not prceeding.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

She does qualify, you wouldn't have got a refund if she didn't.

I think you are getting confused between being eligible and being able to benefit (as a couple).

HMRC check eligibility, not if it was sensible for her to apply in the first place.