Marriage tax allowance

[rendelharris]

I'm sure most people know about this, but I didn't - and apparently 3.6M of 4.2M eligible couples are missing out on it, so I thought it worth sharing. Basically, if you earned less than ?10,600 last tax year (2015-16), or are going to earn less than ?11,000 this year (2016-17), you can transfer ?1,000 of your tax free allowance to your spouse or civil partner (provided they earn less than ?43,000), which could mean saving up to ?432 in tax. Not a dodge or anything, fully legit - because I took a large part of last year off as we were moving house and I was doing the old place up, I came under the threshold, gave Mrs.H ?1,000 of my allowance and HMRC have just (very promptly!) come up with a backdated ?200 odd rebate for us. This article tells more about it: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/marriage-tax-allowance - five minutes to apply online, all you need is both your NI numbers and your passport number (the person who earned below the threshold has to apply).

Hope that helps some people, it's certainly brightened my week!

Cheers,

Rendel

ETA: What happens is, by the way, is that your partner's tax code is changed so they get an extra ?1,000 allowance for this year, but it's backdated, so once they've notified your partner it's been changed they can give HMRC a ring on 03002003300 and claim last year's rebate as well, they'll pay it straight to your bank account.