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

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Marriage Allowance is your only hope then, one of you needs to be born before 6 April 1935 to be eligible for Married Couple's Allowance.

https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance

[Deleted User]

Seagull27 said:

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.

purdyoaten2 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.  

  No need to be confused - married couples allowance only reared it’s head because ‘someone’ hinted at old age. In your circumstances marriage allowance applies for the whole tax year, no matter when you get married.

Tunstallstoven

And "someone" didn't read the post properly!  Dodgy knee, fading brain, it's not looking good for me is it!?

Jeremy535897

Married couple's allowance and marriage allowance are two different things. Married couple's allowance only applies if at least one of you was born before 6 April 1935. See: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance which also contains a link to marriage allowance. Not many over 86s get married so there aren't many new claims, as pointed out above. It is apportioned if you do get married this late in life (see below).

Marriage allowance is what's relevant to you, and that applies for the whole of the tax year in which you marry. You can read the legislation at section 55C ITA 2007: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/3/section/55C .

Although section 55C is worded in the same way as section 46(2)(a) ITA 2007 (the married couple's allowance), there is no equivalent in the marriage allowance legislation to section 54 ITA 2007, which is the apportionment provision applicable to married couple's allowance.

[Deleted User]

It’s a moot point now but by way of confirmation:

In a claim for Marriage Allowance one is not asked for the date of marriage as that information is not relevant.

In a claim for Married Couples Allowance one is asked to provide details of the marriage or civil partnership ceremony.

FIREmenow

Monevator has a good article on the other financial factors which may make marriage beneficial, (not what you were asking but could be helpful to decide whether it is worth the stress to your knee!):

https://monevator.com/how-unmarried-couples-can-protect-their-finances/

Tunstallstoven

[Deleted User] said:

It’s a moot point now but by way of confirmation:

In a claim for Marriage Allowance one is not asked for the date of marriage as that information is not relevant.

In a claim for Married Couples Allowance one is asked to provide details of the marriage or civil partnership ceremony.

What about if you want to make a back dated claim for previous years?  Presumably they ask for proof of date of marriage at that point?

FIREmenow said:

Monevator has a good article on the other financial factors which may make marriage beneficial, (not what you were asking but could be helpful to decide whether it is worth the stress to your knee!):

https://monevator.com/how-unmarried-couples-can-protect-their-finances/

Haha - thank you very much.  Ill have a read   

Thanks for the great helpful replies everyone

[Deleted User]

What about if you want to make a back dated claim for previous years?  Presumably they ask for proof of date of marriage at that point?

They don’t. I have done it!

Tunstallstoven

purdyoaten2 said:

What about if you want to make a back dated claim for previous years?  Presumably they ask for proof of date of marriage at that point?

They don’t. I have done it!

Blimey.  I'm not saying I plan to do it.  Might not be any need anyway as I'm not sure I've paid any tax in previous years.  

But just to confirm, are you saying I could get married in a months time, and then claim the marriage allowance from a few years ago? 

EDIT:  The .gov page says:  "You can backdate your claim to include any tax year since 5 April 2017 that you were eligible for Marriage Allowance."  So guess that's a no.  Officially speaking, at least 

[Deleted User]

I honestly did not consider that you were querying whether or not you could backdate a claim to earlier years where you were not married. What I intimated was that you could claim for earlier years without providing evidence of date of marriage. 

Of course you have to married for at least some point in the tax year for which you are claiming.