To think the married couple tax break is a waste of time

[mpje]

Most people don't seem to understand it / don't claim it.

It will benefit well off the most as they are the ones that are most likely to have one unused tax allowance and for these people 200 odd extra a year isn't very much.

I think it should of just been used to raise the income tax threshold.

Blae - Sorry, I just don't buy those arguments.

Can you please tell me which public services married people somehow manage to make less use of than non-married couples?

Oh, great, thanks for the link MN.
I'm going to apply this evening when I can ask DH for his NI number (or maybe now if I can just find it somewhere)
£18 a month will be helpful and encourages me to apply for a course I keep meaning to sign up for at our local college

I'm not completely against anything that helps families, although helping all families would be better

Oh, and explain this one to me as well, please Blae:

"married couples are more likely to stay together to bring up children"

when the fact remains that fewer people than ever are getting married and the majority of babies are now born to unmarried couples, that there are far more blended/step families than forty years ago, that far more marriages end in divorce now than forty years ago, and that an awful lot of people have children in marriage one, get divorced, and have further children in the second and even third marriages.

We have a competition in our local rag at the moment to Win a £10k Wedding. There was a 12-page pullout with all the shortlisted couples and you vote for the couple you think deserve the wedding. They do it every year. Every couple says a bit about why they think they deserve to win. 85% of the couples have already had one child, many have two, one has five. They all say they can't afford to get married. Not true, they just can't afford a fancy dream wedding - getting married, if that important, doesn't have to cost £10k. Mind you, if you can afford five kids don't tell me you can't afford a wedding. OK, drifting off topic, but this clearly proves that marriage and having children are nothing to do with each other.

It is true that married couples are less likely to separate than unmarried, but at least some of this is because unmarried couples in stable relationships often go on to get married, whereas married couples in stable relationships don't tend to get divorced but stay together as stable unmarried couples. So it's not really comparing like with like.

It wouldn't surprise me if, on average, married couples and their families do cost the state less- although I'd want to see the figures on that one. But that's because of the sort of people who tend to get married. I remain to be convinced that trying to get more people to marry would make any difference.

Yes it's that classic issue with any social stats isn't it Jizzy .....
Is there actually a causal relationship between two things or do they just co-exist?
So any positive characteristics found in famiiies with married parents ... can we as a society just increase those things by persuading more people to marry or stay married?
Secondly of course will such an allowance have any effect in this regard?

I can't see any justification for giving this to any low paid person just because they are married. What about all the single people on low pay?

But single people on low pay are already entitled to more in the way of benefits etc (as its only their income that is taken into account).

I was a single person, self employed, on low wage. I had housing benefit, council tax benefit etc. When I married my partner I lost all that (due to his wage), and he lost his single persons council tax reduction etc. Being able to get £200 odd back a year for that is hardly some huge advantage for getting married.

(Though in my specific case, my husband is actually a higher rate tax payer, so we don't actually get anything).

I do know people who would move in together but feel they can't afford it (because two single people get more from the state, especially if you each have children from previous relationships etc), and I think that's actually pretty rubbish.

But I don't think is tax break actually does anything really to address that problem - I think the government were very careful with this to make sure most people wont qualify (i.e. no unmarried couples, no couples where one is above average and the other below, no couples where both are earning average amounts etc). So they can oh-so generously give a tax break which sounds like they are addressing something on paper and doesn't actually cost them much.

This is aimed mostly at couples with a SAHP. If an unmarried couple split up then if the SAHP finds themselves with nowhere to live, no assets and impaired employability that's George Osborne's problem. If a married couple split up then all those financial problems are passed onto the earnings of the ex-spouse. A two hundred quid bribe for a couple with a SAHP to get married seems like a good investment from the Treasury's POV. And of course also from MN's POV. How many threads have we seen where the moral is "Don't become a SAHP without a ring on your finger or independent means of your own (and your name on the house)"?

It's a token allowance to Tory voters not worth huge amount but looks good. How much was it worth under the old system?

Would make sense for couples with children who are not married to use their tax code over. But thst would be more useful.

It's like the widows/ers allowance you only get of married. The govement said they can't extend to unmarried because it would cost to much. Under that logic if people decided to get married and to many people applied they have to reduce how much you get each..... Dosnt make sense.

It's discriminationatory and unfair against abused, widowed abandoned parents. I don't. Know about a waste of time

I am one of the women who has got caught up in two pension age changes born in 1953, no probs with the 1995 changes as equal pension age is great, problem with the 2011 changes as little time to change plans and to be honest increasing the pension age by one year added another 18 months to my pension age. So age 62 I retired a few months ago and have 3 years to wait for pension so no income. Quite happy that we can use some of my unused tax allowance. Please don't suggest to the govt that they should stop this, I am looking forward to benefitting from a tax break, not something I have managed before.

I agree it isn't much and seems a bit of a faff but every little helps as they say.

Amouse Your tax codes are adjusted, so the working spouse's tax code increases by 106 and they save £212 per annum. The sooner you claim the better, because they will get a nice bonus in their February or March pay. In the 2016/17 tax year they will see the allowance spread across the year. It's very easy to claim online as long as you know your NI numbers and a couple of other pieces of info to prove your identity. www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

I think the government were very careful with this to make sure most people wont qualify

They had their hands tied, as they damn well know that they could never explicitly devise a system which defied the ECHR and treated people differently based on marital status.

It's amusing reading this thread, and seeing people trying to apply logic to the situation. If you accept this tax break was only ever intended to act as a marker for the Tory morality of demonising unmarried single parents, then it makes perfect sense. It has the added advantage of costing all in the scheme of things. A Tory win/win.

Ironically, I told my parents about it and they havvve claimed it, but I've not been arsed to do it for myself! I think our joint income might have been too high last year, anyhow, since DH got loads of overtime.

I just did ours
Slightly miffed that I think he will get it and not me but still, it all helps

MN is great for this kind of thing ... people posting helpful links and telling you how to do it

LurkingHusband I didn't think about the only being married couples, for lots of things now couples who aren't married seem to get treated the same. That does seem unfair.

But lurking, it also makes perfect sense if you look it as trying to give SAHPs the financial protection of marriage - as per hundreds of MN threads. If it saves a handful of women from being thrown out on the streets then it will have done a lot of good, albeit by devious means.

But it's not actually going to persuade anyone to get married. If that was the aim then it would make sense to either waive the costs of getting married to any couple with children where one or both partners earn less than the tax threshold, or bringing in more legal protection for SAHP.

My hubby is a SAHD and I work, don't earn mega bucks. My hubby looked into this, applied for it and was awarded it, obviously fairly easily as he also was busy looking after 1yo DS and the house. We got it back-dated in July to the start of the tax year, which equated to about £100. Not shabby at a time when we really needed it.
My hubby was pleased he was able to contribute financially, albeit not a lot, but also for not a lot of effort either.

dh and i claimed it months ago

no idea if we are better off though, haven't noticed!

There are protections for SAHP, but you need to be married. This is a small but non-trivial bribe to engage in behaviour that the Treasury likes. The Treasury would presumably fancy making anybody with any money financially liable to any former cohabitee who ever claims any benefits, a bit like the CSA for adults. But that would be quite a big piece of legislation and not even the most power crazed chancellor would fancy it, so they settle for bribing people to do it themselves, which is simpler, and is also popular with the Family Values crowd.

But that's not a big enough bribe when it's unlikely to cover the cost of the wedding.

Depends how long you expect to be married. And the proportion of SAHPs who actually find themselves in the position where they're saved from destitution only by their marriage certificates is presumably relatively small, so it wouldn't be financially worthwhile giving everyone a huge bribe.

Ridiculous tax break. Imagine my dad getting a letter after my mum died telling him he would no longer be entitled to the tax break for having the temerity to be widowed.

I'm a SAHM and unmarried. We wouldn't be entitled to it as dp earns above the threshold but I can't see it making the slightest bit of difference to the numbers of people getting married or staying married. Just throwing a bone to the right wing of the Tory party who believe being married is better than any other start of affairs. Including being widowed, presumably.

If they wanted to protect SAHM in the event of a split the could stop charging to use the CSA and stop cutting/witholding legal aid.

Also, the assumption that SAHPs are protected by marriage is not always the case. Marriage generally protects the poorer partner- my friend (a SAHM) owned several houses and had a share in her family business when she got married. Marrying her now Ex husband was the most costly mistake she ever made.

Can you get it if one of you is working but earning between £10,601 and £42,385 and the other spouse does not work at all? Looking at the guidance it would appear not as it is applied to the lower earning person's tax code.

If there's only one of you earning anything its applied to the only earners tax code.