Transferring Spouse's tax allowance

You can transfer 10% of your spouses tax allowance, can a higher rate tax payer do this

No you can't. Your spouse can apply for Marriage Allowance.

Your spouse can apply as long as they aren't a higher rate payer.

You can then benefit from Marriage Allowance providing you aren't a higher rate payer*
* there is an unusual situation involving dividend income which means you can be a basic rate payer and still not be able to benefit but if you don't have dividend income its not something you need to be concerned with.

There are no income limits with eligibility for Marriage Allowance however the ability to be able to benefit from it is dependent on income. If your spouse had income of at least the Personal Allowance (or more) it would usually only be worthwhile applying if some of her income was savings interest or dividends. In this situation she would be making herself liable to tax but could be taxed at one of numerous 0% tax rates currently in place.

I just tipped into 40% higher tax allowance, can she elect to give me some of her allowance (10% - £1,100) I believe. I paid 40% on £590, so If I had an extra £1,100 allowance I would drop out of the 40% band and my Personal Savings Allowance would be £1,000 and not £500?

Marriage Allowance doesn't actually entitle you to any additional allowances. If your wife applied yes she would be giving up some of her Personal Allowance but in return you dont receive any extra allowances, you get a deduction from your tax bill of £230 for 2017:18 (£1150 x 20%).

https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/tax-basics/what-tax-allowances-am-i-entitled#toc-what-is-the-marriage-allowance-

Irrespective of that though the higher rate test comes first, you are a higher rate payer so not eligible.

For 2018:19 you could make personal pension contributions or give money to charity under the Gift Aid scheme, each of these things increases the amount of basic rate tax you pay so could bring you out of the higher rate bracket and then you could become eligible for Marriage Allowance. Not recommending that just making you aware of the possibility.

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

No. The income rules are:

you don't earn anything or your income is £11,850 or less

your partner's income is between £11,851 and £46,350 (or £43,430 if you're in Scotland)

Wrong for UK-based taxpayers, for whom the rule is that neither should be - or would be as a result of the MAT - a higher-rate taxpayer.

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

Tell HRMC that, that was a straight copy paste from their website.

The HMRC website is wrong - and they know it. Now, so do you.

Use better sources - like legislation.gov - and you won't propagate HMRC nonsense.