marriage allowance

[user1481743962]

Hello
I have been reading about marriage allowance- and understand that it is applicable if one of the partner is earning less than £11000.
But what happens if the income is slightly more than £11000, is there any way of claiming the marriage allowance.It seems to be penalising for a marginal difference.
Please advise.
Thanks in advance

It's impossible to claim it if the lower earner's taxable income is over £11k. There are no concessions.

I think whenever there is a payment, those who don't quite meet the criteria to qualify feel they've got the shitty end of the stick.

The marriage allowance is the ability to transfer part of the lower earning spouses unused personal allowance.
If the lower earning spouse is earning above the personal allowance they are using their personal allowance in full.
The is nothing to transfer as it is already being fully used.
No one is being penalised.

but at 11k you are using your personal allowance. what do you want to transfer and what do you feel penalised for?

Why would you need it if already using your personal allowance?

So what you really want is for people who don't earn much more than the PTA to be given a bit more PTA? (Which they can then transfer to someone else.)

Erm, WHY?

£11k allowance per person per year seems fair and transparent.

Penalising?
Are you on glue, or just don't understand how tax allowances work?

Apologies I'm also about to ask a daft question about this.

I'm self employed and have a gross income of more than 11k but when I've done my deductions ( not tax) but all my professional insurances/courses/petrol/equipment- it takes me under 11k.

Am I entitled to it?

And - yes it's based on net income (after deductions). You have to fill in the online form and request your excess tax allowance is given to your husband.

www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance/what-youll-get

Sorry wrong link - let me get the correct one!

www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance/how-it-works

If your husband is a higher rate tax payer he cannot claim. Remember you can backdate to last year too.

And if it gets confusing as a sole trader, just imagine that your business was a Lyd Co instead. That often makes it clearer.

"If your husband is a higher rate tax payer he cannot claim"
I wish the government wouldn't dress this up as a 'marriage allowance' then if not all married couples are benefitting from it. Just call it something else.

Even it you approve in theory of rewarding people via the tax system for having signed a marriage contract (which I don't) it's been a shambles. HMRC weren't given enough notice and their systems didn't cope, especially where people were in Self Assessmt. As an accountant I'd say it's a mess.

You can only transfer a small portion of the allowance, irrespective of how much is "unused".

HRTPs have been excluded for some reason.

Single parents can't benefit.

Unmarried couples with children can't benefit.

It was a pathetic, messy, miserly ideological gesture on DCs part.

He's a higher rate tax payer. I thought I could transfer it to me

God I'm so baffled. I'm self employed plus I also have a ltd company to put £800 through (the only way they'd pay me!). The whole thing is a nightmare

If you don't use all your personal allowance and your spouse is not a higher rate tax payer you can transfer up to £1000 of your personal allowance to your spouse, saving them a bit over £200 tax saving a year.

Its given a pretty inaccurate name, as most are, but not complicated.

The personal allowance is going to keep increasing until 2020 when it will be 12.5k, so if you earn just over 11k now you may qualify in a couple of years.