Marriage Allowance – who said romance was dead?

Love, Romance…tax relief

Ok, so you maybe wouldn’t declare tax relief as being one of your reasons to get down on one knee or accepting a proposal, but once you are married you maybe entitled to tax relief.

The marriage allowance can potentially give one of the partners within a marriage or civil partnership a tax saving of up to £252 (based on 22/23 tax year). The key things to qualify are:

• You’re married or in a civil partnership
• One of the partners to be earning less than the personal allowance – £12,570 based on 2022/23 tax year
• The other partner earns between £12,571 and £50,270 based on 2022/23 tax year

The tax relief works by transferring up to 10% of the unused personal allowance of the lowest earner.

The allowance can be claimed using the following link – https://www.gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance and is given by an adjustment to your tax code or reflected on your self-assessment tax return if you complete one.

Please note that even if you complete a self-assessment return, you still need to apply the marriage allowance yourself, this can’t be done by your agent/accountant. They will then just reflect that the relief is due on your return when completing this ahead of the filing date.

If you didn’t know about this and you think you may be eligible, you can make a claim to cover up to the 4 previous tax years – so don’t miss out.

If you circumstances change which would no longer make you eligible then you will need to notify HMRC of this.

A potential extra £252 per year…who said romance was dead!