Last chance to claim marriage allowance payments

Normally that means an income below £50,000 (below £43,430 in Scotland).

If you fulfil those conditions, then the partner who doesn’t pay tax should claim Marriage Allowance to transfer some of their unused personal tax-free allowance to their spouse. In addition, they can claim for each year that the couple fulfilled the conditions, from 2015/16.

Those five years are worth a total of £1,150 to the taxpayer.

To get that amount a claim must be made by 5 April, 2020.

If you claim later than that the allowance for 2015/16, worth £212, disappears.

Once claimed, the allowance will continue from year to year, as long as the conditions are fulfilled.

Next tax year, 2020/21, it will be worth at least £250. The allowance for the current tax year is given by adjusting the taxpayer’s tax code.

For previous tax years HMRC sends a cheque. The couple must be married or civil partnered at any time in the tax year to claim it.

Opposite sex couples who could only become civil partners since December can only claim the allowance for this tax year.

Claiming is simple, but there are around two million people entitled to Marriage Allowance who have not put in the claim and are missing out.

Go to gov.uk, search “marriage allowance” and make sure you claim it back to 2015/16.

OLDER COUPLES

If one of you was born before 6 April 1935, then you cannot claim Marriage Allowance. Instead you should claim Married Couple’s Allowance.

That applies even if both of you pay tax, and it can reduce the tax bill of the partner with the higher income by up to £891.50 in 2019/20.

To claim that, go to gov.uk and search “married couples allowance”.