How long do you have to be married for to benefit from Marriage Tax Allowance?

Tunstallstoven

Who said romance is dead?!?  

My partner and I could be in a position now whereby I would benefit from the Marriage Tax Allowance in this financial year.  Possibly in other years too, but I'd need to check our paperwork for that...  

But we're not married!  So if we were to get married say next month, or in March, could we apply for the whole of this financial year?  How about previous years?  Or would it only be backdated for the period we were actually married?

I've read through the article but couldn't see this question answered, so any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

Keep_pedalling

Only from the date of marriage. If you you just looking at the financial benefits of being married or in a civil partnership, IHT is the big one with spousal exemption and transferable NRBs.

Jeremy535897

The marriage allowance applies when you are married for the whole or part of a tax year, so you can get the allowance for the whole of the tax year in which you marry. The cost of a wedding will normally be considerably more than the benefit of the allowance.

Tunstallstoven

Keep_pedalling said:

Only from the date of marriage. 

Ah, that's a shame, but it makes sense.  Obviously it rules out previous years.  But just to be clear, if we were married in this financial year would it apply for the whole financial year or just for the portion of the year in which we were married?  

Many thanks for your help

[Deleted User]

Seagull27 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Only from the date of marriage. 

Ah, that's a shame, but it makes sense.  Obviously it rules out previous years.  But just to be clear, if we were married in this financial year would it apply for the whole financial year or just for the portion of the year in which we were married?  

Many thanks for your help

The whole tax year. Many years ago March was an extremely popular time to get married.

Tunstallstoven

[Deleted User] said:

The whole tax year. Many years ago March was an extremely popular time to get married.

That's better news.  

Jeremy535897 said:

The cost of a wedding will normally be considerably more than the benefit of the allowance.

It would be 100% basic, functional, and as cheap as possible.  So there might be a little change, or else we'd break even.  We've talked about getting married before for other financial or practical reasons, some of which @Keep_pedalling  highlighted.  So if the Marriage Tax Allowance covered the cost of the marriage, we would in effect be saving that cost which we might have ended up paying anyhow.

So might be time to get down on one knee.  So long as someone is around to help me get back up again!

p00hsticks

Seagull27 said:

purdyoaten2 said:

The whole tax year. Many years ago March was an extremely popular time to get married.

That's better news.  

Jeremy535897 said:

The cost of a wedding will normally be considerably more than the benefit of the allowance.

It would be 100% basic, functional, and as cheap as possible.  So there might be a little change, or else we'd break even.  We've talked about getting married before for other financial or practical reasons, some of which @Keep_pedalling  highlighted.  So if the Marriage Tax Allowance covered the cost of the marriage, we would in effect be saving that cost which we might have ended up paying anyhow.

So might be time to get down on one knee.  So long as someone is around to help me get back up again!

We did something similar, although in our case the 'romantic' reason was to secure elegibility to spouses pensions from old fashioned DB schemes that only recognise marriage, not long term partnerships. It cost about £130 I think - you have to pay about £40 each for the compulsory intiial checking of eligibilty,  id etc prior to the actual wedding, and then the register office had a basic deal available on one morning each week where the most simple ceremonly (two witnesses, no other guests, no music or readings etc) was about £50.

To this day we still haven't told anyone (other than the relevant pension companies) that we finally did it!

Tunstallstoven

Ha ha - that sounds very similar to our situation.  Thanks for sharing.  I think the only obstacle might be timescales as I think there is a usual delay at anytime (i.e., application times, notice, etc), but which may now be worsened by covid.  I'll make some enquiries.  

Cheers, and belated congratulations   I hope none of your family members read this as I'd feel terrible if it was on my account that the cat was let out of the bag!

Keep_pedalling

[Deleted User] said:

Seagull27 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Only from the date of marriage. 

Ah, that's a shame, but it makes sense.  Obviously it rules out previous years.  But just to be clear, if we were married in this financial year would it apply for the whole financial year or just for the portion of the year in which we were married?  

Many thanks for your help

The whole tax year. Many years ago March was an extremely popular time to get married.

I stand corrected, sorry for the misinformation.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

I think there has been some confusion on this thread.

Marriage Allowance is all or nothing, if eligible and the applicant you get a reduced Personal Allowance of £11,310 and the recipient gets a tax reduction of £252.  Doesn't matter if you get married on 6 April or 5 April.

But Married Couples Allowance is apportioned in the year of marriage so marry after 5 March but before 6 April and you would get 1/12th of the allowance.  Although I suspect there aren't many new claims for Married Couple's Allowance these days.

So might be time to get down on one knee. So long as someone is around to help me get back up again!

If that's an age thing then look at Married Couple's Allowance, in the long term it can save far more tax than Marriage Allowance, you just need to be old enough to be eligible 

Tunstallstoven

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Married Couples Allowance is apportioned in the year of marriage so marry after 5 March but before 6 April and you would get 1/12th of the allowance.

Jeremy535897 said:

The marriage allowance applies when you are married for the whole or part of a tax year, so you can get the allowance for the whole of the tax year in which you marry. The cost of a wedding will normally be considerably more than the benefit of the allowance.

[Deleted User] said:

Seagull27 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Only from the date of marriage. 

Ah, that's a shame, but it makes sense.  Obviously it rules out previous years.  But just to be clear, if we were married in this financial year would it apply for the whole financial year or just for the portion of the year in which we were married?  

Many thanks for your help

The whole tax year. Many years ago March was an extremely popular time to get married.

Yes, I'm confused now too, as clearly the quotes above contradict.  Does anyone have a link to where I might find this info so I can have a read of it myself please?  

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

If that's an age thing then look at Married Couple's Allowance, in the long term it can save far more tax than Marriage Allowance, you just need to be old enough to be eligible 

Mid-40s with an arthritic knee, but thanks all the same   

And thanks to everyone for the replies.