Martin Lewis: Is being married financially worth it? The nine big benefits and how to use them...

grassmarket

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/701286
Link to Sceptic2025’s petition
But haven’t signed it because fairness would be if everyone reverted back to to CPI - not just the childless. 

grassmarket

adeyshrops said:

Here's a question no one seems to have an answer for.  When getting married if you both own your own houses you may be liable to CGT as you are only allowed 1 PRR. How much liability for CGT do you have. Is it from when your purchases the property, in my case over 20 years or is it from the date of the marriage.  So the question for me is do we sell 1 property before we get married, or continue to live in both houses.   Any thoughts?

Sell before marriage to avoid any CGT. All assets shared on marriage, inc all equity in both homes - from time of purchase. So when 2nd home sold, all equity would be subject to CGT. But if sell after marriage - nominate whichever house has most equity as primary residence before sale.

snowyy

XRAT said:

My question is similar to Urmston_Linda above, I'm happily married, I hope my wife is too.
I worked, she raised a family, we struggled on one wage and one personal allowance to support a family. She has a small pension, we squirrelled most of our savings into my pension having received sound advice on the M.S.E. pension forum (Respect to DunstonH)
Due to the growth of Nvidia, I have a pension beyond our dreams, but can still only utilise one personal allowance and one tenth of the first part of the other (marriage allowance.)
Is our only option to divorce, split the pension and remarry? By my calculations the difference between two £50k incomes and one £100k income is around £15k tax saved every year.

I'm no expert but i have been retired for nearly 3 years and have now realised that any benefits you get from having a pension all slide back to HMRC! especially with the freeze on the tax allowance.By pure luck i started a small investment in a fund over thirty years ago this was in a share PEP/ISA as time went on a made more investments and with the dividends reinvested i have made a substantial fund.But the Key thing is it is all within a ISA! so the tax man can't get his hands on it! i have a small SIPP which i have taken the tax free lump and added it to my share ISA allowance.So for me i will where possible be moving pension money to a share ISA.I will also add i receive 8.5% dividend from L&G....Tax Free!  

BetHedger

Around 15 years ago my late wife left all including her interest in our jointly owned house to me. My IHT allowances including my current house add her £500k to my £500k.
In my case I cannot see financial benefit in marriage or formal partnership at present and substantial potential disbenefit. My girlfriend and I have wills in place drawn "in contemplation of marriage" which broadly mirror save for provisions specific in respect to our separate offspring. Thr CGT problem is avoided by us each living primarily in our own homes (England and Wales) and visiting each other. Her house will pass to some of her children as their home. My offspring have their own. I retired 6 years ago while contracted out of state 2nd pension so I get about 99% of the "new" state pension to which I add a small defined benefit personal pension and a defined benefit 50% widower pension. Then I have a SIPP formed by consolidation of defined contribution (money purchase) employment pensions. So far this is one third crystalised in drawdown and two thirds uncrystalised for future use. I have paid enough tax, national insurance, council tax and indirect taxes over the past 50 years so as state pension, defined benefit pensions and council tax rise each year I now quantify the increase in tax. This informs my decision as to how much to reduce my SIPP taxable income drawdown to constrain overall tax paid. When money gets too tight I crystalise a bit more SIPP taking 25% tax free to top up a sinking fund. This means I can make savings on durable consumption goods by bulk buying when discounts are available. The IHT position from 2027 inclusion of pension savings in estate value could be a worry.

HeatherKL

I've looked at this site and the Government site and can't see if you can transfer your allowance if you are not working. Also my OH seems to be earning over 50K, which means we aren't eligible, but is on the 20% tax rate which means we are. Confused

horsewithnoname

Should make marriage as hard as divorce and divorce as easy as marriage. Would cut down on the number of both!

venetiadarling

I was so suprised by this piece on the 9 benefits because you missed THE MOST IMPORTANT point!  Get a prenup before getting married!  This means that if the marriage ends by divorce it is cheaper, less complicated and far less stressful than going through the trauma of a divorce without one.  Sadly, this is my experience. Together 17 years - got married for the benefits - thought I had a fabulous marriage...... until a woman came along and they ran off together.  2 years later and we are still not divorced as when lawyers start the process, they are not interested in anything but the law - which can be a very blunt instrument. A very expensive one too.  Please update your article.

diddyflanker

You might want to ADD one more aspect to the benefits related to some pension schemes if they have RULES that differentiate between cohabiting and married couples.

For example, the Teachers' Pension Scheme, a defined benefit scheme, wipes out any service added to the pension scheme from before 2007 if the couple are not married or in a civil partnership when it comes to working out the survivor's pension upon the death of the teacher.

I was talking to a group of Headteachers just after your show in February and had two Heads with virtually identical pensions, having been teaching since 1990 and with 35 years of service in the pension scheme. On their death one of them would be leaving their partner with a pension of £15,000 a year for the rest of their life whilst the other would leave a pension of half that at £7,500 a year.

Turns out the first was married and second had "only" been cohabiting with their partner for over 20 years. One had their service from 1990 to 2025 counted in the calculation of their pension, all 35 years of their service, whilst the other only had the service from 2007 to 2025 counted, just 18 of their 35 years.

The second Head was on the phone to their partner before the end of the meeting arranging their wedding!

(They did catch me after my talk to let me know that they had been discussing getting married following your program anyway but that this was the push that put the icing on their wedding plans!)

Sundmorning

My first husband died and with no assets so IHT allowance not used.  Second husband died and all his IHT allowance was used.  My understanding is that I am still allowed to have my estate use my first husband’s Inheritance Tax allowance when I die, so give my adult children £1,000,000 free from tax.  Is this correct