Marriage Allowance

Are you one of an estimated 3.6 million couples missing out on this allowance? Only 10% of those eligible are thought to have claimed it. So don’t miss out! You could save £220 a year!

The Marriage Allowance came into effect on 6 April 2015. Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,100 of your Personal Allowance to your husband, wife or civil partner. This reduces their tax by up to £220 a tax year, so as a couple you will be better off by this £220.

To benefit you need to meet these conditions:

• You must be married or in a civil partnership
• The lower earner must have an income of £11,000 or less
• The other partner’s income must be between £11,001 and £43,000
• Both of you must have been born after 6 April 1935
• If you live abroad you must be eligible for a UK Personal Allowance

You can apply for Marriage Allowance online and it will be backdated to the start of the tax year so make sure you apply before 5 April 2017 to benefit for the tax year ended 5 April 2017. It is the partner with the lower income that needs to apply.

Once you’ve applied the Marriage Allowance will stay in place each year until either one of you cancels it or because of changes such as you are no longer eligible or death or divorce (you may need to notify certain changes).

You can apply online here: https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance and you will need :

• You and your partners National Insurance numbers
• Your bank account number of an account that any government payments eg state pension, child benefit etc are paid into
• Bank account number of any account that pays you interest
• Details from your P60

Once the application is complete you will receive email confirmation.