This tax break for married couples

Yes, married people tend to be more stable than unmarried people (yes, I AM generalising here).
Marriage is nearly almost always entered into with the intention of staying together for life whereas cohabitation simply is not.
Cohabitation can range from a quick experiment that lasts a few months to lifelong commitment.
So it does seem reasonable to suggest that marriages are more likely to go the distance.
This is NOT to say that every marriage is deeply committed nor every cohabitation will fall by the wayside. So no flaming, please!

Nevertheless, this tax break is a daft idea because the amounts involved are simply too low to matter to even poorest couple.

Although I do raise my eyebrows that this is social engineering; sorry but the benefits system has been socially engineering for years- how daft is a system that encourages the break up of families by discriminating against families staying together?

If you give something to any group of people there is always another group of people that aren't going to like it. Give a couples allowance and singles don't like it. Give single parents a reduction in their council tax and two-parent families don't like it. Give a child allowance and the childless protest. Give wealthy people some tax back because they don't live in the UK much and another set of people are annoyed. 'C'est la vie'.

Are couples more stable because they've chosen to get married or do are steady people more likely to get married than others anyway? Who knows? As I say, I don't think it really encourages or even rewards marriage... too small an amount of money.

If the government thinks that married couples have better less costly expenses, as citizens, then on the surface it's a great idea. But to penalised people that have escaped horrid relationships or haven't found/don't want a long term relationship then it's a bit tough. Personally I think if the government improved our society in other ways the family would come back all on it's own.

sorry..only read first page!!

Does it extend to civil partnerships?

I can't see this going down well if it goes automatically to the man (rather than the woman)!

it's £150, is it spread over each months pay or do you get it in one lump sum. Is it even worth having?

The thinking behind it must be that married and 2 parent households cost the state a lot less than single parent households on the whole so the Government is seeking to incentivise this by offering a small tax break. Personally I think this is ridiculous particulary when you consider the national debt and I don't believe the Government should engage in this direct social engineering.

So if you are not on PAYE, then you do a tax return. You declare your status there. No biggie.

The married person's allowance worked within the PAYE system not many years ago. Not sure why it would be a problem now.

It is literally some money for being married. Always was. In the old days, women often gave up jobs when they got married and so the allowance was to reflect that a married man had to support two people rather than one person. Also, in the old days, a woman's assets were considered her husband's on marriage... brr!

These days, it's being proposed to reflect that married couples and the children they produce are statistically more stable and less problematic (i.e. cheaper on the state) than unmarried couples, single parent households and other constructs. I don't personally think that £150 tax allowance (boils down to £50 cash in your pocket - £1 extra a week) will encourage anyone to get married or stay married. I'm not sure it will see the light of day, to be honest.

Even if the systems don't change, the PAYE system used to cope OK with the married man's tax allowance in the past. As for the money-saving aspect it's all swings and roundabouts anyway when it comes to taxation. Brown was the master of the stealth tax - always messing about with the tax thresholds, personal allowances, rules on NI. Not to mention the reduction of hundreds of previously 'allowable' tax-exemptions. All to prop up his ideologically-driven expenses like tax credits for high earners, child trust funds and other peculiar ideas.

I do a paper return, got the letter detailing my refund a month ago nearly, and am still waiting for it to hit my account. I am told it was pulled for 'security checks'. They've been refunding me into the same bank account for 3 years, for about £300 a go; don't see what they need to check.

I file a tax return online ... it's not that much admin and if you get a few quid back that's quite an incentive. So do my pensioner parents, incidentally, because their modest income comes from various income sources... state pension, private pension, savings, shares... and PAYE often gets it wrong.

I think HMRC promotes the online tax return idea because it's individuals doing the hard work for them and the online aspect means less paper flying about. I always get my rebate back within a few days of filing the return straight into my bank account. They just have to make the occasional check.