Quoting HMRC, the BBC has reported that less than a quarter of couples eligible for the Marriage Allowance are bothering to claim it.
This is sad as the allowance is worth up to £220 a year, a not insignificant amount to a couple on low incomes. This is the allowance for 2016/2017, but couples can also claim for 2015/2016 when the allowance was worth up to £212, thus giving a potential unclaimed total of £432 – not to be sneezed at.
How does it work? The Marriage Allowance lets an individual who is not using their full Personal Allowance, currently £11,000 pa to transfer up to 10% of that Personal Allowance to their husband, wife or civil partner - if they earn more than £11,000 and they are paying tax at 20% Basic Rate.
The transfer is not relevant where one of the couple are either higher rate (40%) or additional rate (45%) tax payers.
Claiming the transfer is very easy and can be done on-line by going to https://www.gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance
Anyone claiming the allowance will need the following information:
Their and their partner’s National Insurance numbers. Proof of identity which can be any one of the following: the last 4 digits of the account that their child benefit, tax credits or pension is paid into the last 4 digits of an account that pays the individual interest details from their P60 details from any of their 3 most recent payslips their passport number and expiry date.This begs the questions:
Do you have any colleagues who could benefit from claiming the transfer but are not claiming? If so, could you publicise it within your organisation?