to think the marriage allowance is an unfair tax allowance

[chomalungma]

It's going to be a thing over the next few weeks.

The Conservatives introduced it - in the coalition. I think the Lib Dems accepted it so they could get free school meals as well.

Great if you're married. You don't need to have kids to get it. Just be married.

If you aren't married, then you don't get it. Even though the money could be handy if you are in a couple.

Or if it didn't exist, then the money could be used to go towards education, Sure Start, the NHS, relationship counselling...all things that help ALL families instead of married couples.

Angela Rayner struggled to answer that question on Marr this morning whereas Corbyn gave a clear answer - stating it was discriminatory.

I think it will come up in the election campaign.

Is it unfair?

But how would you quantify someone as being eligible if not married? Children? Well no, because that's not fair. Time together? Well what qualifies as a serious relationship? Living together, closer maybe, but some people choose not to live together.

The trouble with the systems being proposed by Corbyn is that they are punitive. He expects high taxes to be paid, but not for universal benefit. He should be looking more towards the Nordic models.

100% This.

Those who pay the most are locked out by eligibility criteria or because they suffer from "wrong think" in how they choose to raise their DC or fulfil their caring responsibilities.

Do you think that unmarried couples - couples who have chosen not to get married - but who are in the same situation as you - should have the same benefit as well?

If they want the benefit, they can get married. Their choice - uphold what they have in the way of anti-marriage principles (or reservations about the longevity of their relationship) or give them up for £250 p/a.

But how would you quantify someone as being eligible if not married? Children

I agree.

I don't think there should be an allowance just because you are married.

I think there should be a mechanism to ensure that people and children don't end up in poverty due to their financial situation.

I think you should be getting the fiver because you are a low income family who need the money, not because you have got married

This.

Marriage is good for society and therefore incentivised

And if the Government really cared about children, they would look seriously at the support children receive from absent parents when they separate.

Yes - it's clearly discriminatory and rewards a 1950s style of married couple with non earning / low earning wife

Carers allowance is the benefit available to you as a carer for your elderly parents.

Not if you’re getting the state pension it isn’t.

Well if you want it and you're in a couple, get married.

No brainer really. And it isn't discriminatory - it's your choice!!

Felicity Hannah has it spot on I. The article below

www.lovemoney.com/news/61857/marriage-allowance-tax-break-civil-partnership

Not all married couples get it. When it was introduced I was a SAHM but as DH was/is a higher rate taxpayer we didn’t qualify for it.

Article by Felicity Hannah copied and pasted below

Marriage Allowance: an unfair tax break that needs to go?

HOUSEHOLD MONEY
Felicity Hannah
Updated on 10 January 2017 | 21 Comments

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loveMONEY writer Felicity Hannah gives her view on the Government's Marriage Allowance.

Almost 3 million couples in the UK are missing out on a free tax break and now HMRC has launched a campaign to make more people aware of it.

It’s the Marriage Allowance, open to couples who are married or in a civil partnership, and it’s worth up to £220 a year to qualifying couples.

It allows one person with a low income to transfer part of their tax-free Personal Allowance to their tax-paying partner and HMRC says just 1.3 million of the 4.2 million people who qualify have bothered signing up.

However, I would argue that it is not the business of the state to reward marriage and that doing so discriminates against the many, many families who do not qualify.

We should not be encouraging the take-up of this tax break, we should be abandoning it. Here’s why:

Big day but not big bucks

Of course £220 a year is not exactly a hefty reward for marriage, but that is not the point. £4.23 a week is hardly going to have couples racing for the altar or registry office, particularly with the average wedding costing £25,090, according to Hitched.com.

You’d have to be married for 114 years before you turned a profit.

But it’s the principle that matters here. We’re not in the 1930s now; it’s perfectly acceptable to choose not to marry or to end a marriage. So there can be no justification for rewarding this behaviour through the tax system, even with a trifling amount.

What’s more, this isn’t even a tax break for all married and civil-partnered couples, it’s for those where one partner either doesn’t bring in a wage or earns only a small amount – most commonly those more traditional couples where one partner goes out to work and the other takes care of the house and any children.

It’s about rewarding a 1950s ideal of home life, not the many ways that both married and unmarried people live their lives today.

Of course it’s fine for a couple to operate that way, and many couples with children have no choice. But to suggest that a couple are more deserving of help because they are married and one keeps house is to undo 60 years of progress.

After all, what this nominal tax break is showing is who the state values the most. So what about the people whose relationships the state has decided are less deserving?

Who’s being discriminated against?

First of all, even married couples won’t get this, it’s estimated that less than a third will qualify. That’s simply because it will only go to couples where one doesn’t carry out paid work and one is the breadwinner.

And don’t assume that this poorly targeted tax break is designed to help children.

The campaign group Don’t Judge My Family reports that fewer than one in five families with children will get it – single, widowed and cohabiting parents will not qualify. What's more, many qualifying couples will be older, with adult children.

I agree with Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth who called it ‘perverse’. He said:

“It's a benefit that doesn't go to the vast majority of families, doesn't go to widows and doesn't go to people who have been left by an abusive husband.”

What’s more, this is just another way in which the Government discriminates against couples who have not married, whether because they have chosen not to or simply not got around to it.

Bereavement benefits and the Widowed Parents Allowance are limited to couples who tied the knot, leaving families who chose not to at a severe financial disadvantage should one parent die.

What about the cost?

Marriage Allowance: is it fair? (Image: Shutterstock)

The allowance is a sop; a bone thrown for those moralising traditionalists who want everyone to marry before they live together and have children.

However, while a few pounds a week may not be enough to change people’s behaviour, it all adds up to a more substantial amount. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that it could cost the exchequer around £700 million a year, assuming people actually take it up.

That’s enough to offset the cuts to SureStart, the cuts to the educational maintenance allowance or the bedroom tax.

Of course, in actual fact the cost is much lower because the take-up is lower. But if 1.3 million couples are claiming it then it’s already costing the exchequer £286 million a year.

As a nation, we don’t have that kind of money to spare simply to discriminate against families that decided not to get hitched.

There are obviously better ways to spend the money. For example why is the single person discount only 25%? Why do households with 2+ adults pay less income tax per person?
I don't know if it should automatically go on child services either. Maybe each state school, emergency services station or hospital could get a winter fuel discount?

Hang on, isn’t marriage good?

It makes sense for the Government to use the tax system to reward behaviour that is good for society, like not charging VAT on fruit and veg, or helping ease the cost of childcare through childcare vouchers.

So you may be assuming that marriage is good for children and therefore should be encouraged.

However, this is actually not true. Research from the IFS does show that children born to married couples do better, both academically and socially than those born to cohabiting parents. But that’s not some magic conferred on them by the exchange of rings!

Cohabiting couples are more likely to have lower educational qualifications and lower incomes than married couples and both of those are factors in lower outcomes.

It’s ludicrous to suggest that the children of cohabiting couples would achieve more if their parents had wed.

The only other way you can argue that marriage is good is if you are religiously minded and believe that relationships outside of marriage are wrong.

That may be your position and you may believe it wholeheartedly, but it is not the business of the state to penalise or reward based on increasingly dated notions of morality.

Plan for your future together: beginner's guide to stocks & shares ISAs

Yes it’s important

One final point. The allowance is so small and the take-up is so low that you might be willing to dismiss this as simply not that important.

There are bigger issues to worry about just now, bigger political concerns to dedicate time and energy to.

However, this is a situation where families are being discriminated against simply because they don’t conform to an increasingly old-fashioned ideal. It’s a situation that rewards highly traditional families and by doing so devalues the set-up of other families. And that’s incredibly important.

This is 2017. Families come in all shapes and sizes and not all choose to get married or remain married. It is not the business of the state to use the tax system to reward behaviours simply based on an old-fashioned and discriminatory notion of morality.

What do you think? Is this a non-issue or does it matter? Should the reward be greater? Have your say using the comments below.

SORRY

That was way longer than Imthought

< creeps of the thread >

If you don't get married, the higher earner can end the relationship without owing the lower/non earner a penny. Guess who then picks up the bill for the lower/non earner? The state.

I really don't understand why people are so annoyed about this. As a maximum it's £250 a year. We struggle from one month to the next so this little extra helps.
Honestly it's not hard to understand. Get married or don't. But if you don't you can't complain about not getting the benefits of being married. Of course you can choose not to marry but then you can't get the benefit. For the simple reason it's called marriage allowance.

We struggle from one month to the next so this little extra helps

What do you think the marriage allowance is for?
Why does it exist?

Firstly, it's not a 'hand out'. The money is not given to anyone or taken from anywhere as it was never in the pot, it's a tax relief. Secondly, 4.5 million people are not claiming it. Thirdly, it does cost money to get married, be married and end a marriage, it doesn't cost anything (mandatory) to separate as a non married couple.

I want to point out as well that me and DH claim it. He earns £33k a year and I earn £10k a year. £1,250 of MY allowance has been passed to him, no one elses. This means that once I hit earnings of £11,250 a year, I will have to pay tax instead of being able to earn £12,500. So in essence, DH is getting a tax break of £262.50 a year (Scotland) but any year that I earn over £11,250, I will be paying more tax than the non married couple. So no, it's not a handout or depriving the government of £2 billion that could be better used. I'm pretty sure the government benefitted greatly from the extra corporation tax that they got from us having a wedding and giving businesses plenty of £££'s. They will then benefit if we ever get divorced and HAVE to pay to do so.

In marriage you share all finances, so why not part of tax allowance🤷

Whatever will be next? Moaning about inheritance rights and such because "I dOn'T WaNt To GeT MarRiEd buT I waNT aLl ThE RiGhtS"? You want benefits of something, you must do that something and accept the responsibilities too.

If you don't get married, the higher earner can end the relationship without owing the lower/non earner a penny. Guess who then picks up the bill for the lower/non earner? The state.

Perfect explanation.

GrumpyHoonMain

What does any of that have to do with marriage allowance? No ones forcing you to have a religious ceremony anyway. This is England. You get married according to English law. I’m not sure what you don’t understand about that

They manage to stop your benefits quick enough if you move in together, sometimes even if your partner stays over regularly.

On the other hand a tax doesn't have to be fair it's done to encourage something the government wants you to do. Conservative believe in marriages they give it a tax break. If you don't like it vote them out.