Marriage Allowance

[MargaretCabbage]

I've recently applied for Marriage Allowance as we're eligible while I'm on maternity leave. It's been backdated for the last tax year too. With my lower personal allowance I have now underpaid about £230 in tax and have received a demand. My DH has been told he has overpaid by £170. We are worse off by about £60. Is this supposed to be possible with Marriage Allowance, and if so can I just cancel it?

That should not have happened.

What was your income 2015/16? And what was your husband's?

What is your estimated income for 2016/17? And his?

Did you ask them to backdate it? The idea is you transfer unused allowance so you shouldn't be paying any tax at all. If you pay tax then you don't have any allowance to transfer.

Did you earn less than £11K in either tax year. If you did then you wouldn't have any allowance to transfer. This is annoying though if you thought you'd get a rebate and you ended up paying more. I didn't think it would be possible to actually pay more. But who knows with the tax people. They make up the rules as they go along. Give them a ring and ask them to explain though it is hard to get through.

I didn't ask for backdating because I earned £10,717 in 2015-16 so had earned more than the personal allowance of £10,600 for that year.

I've just had a proper look at the paperwork and realised that DH's calculation is missing the amount he paid for a previous underpayment, so he'll have to chase that up, and then that brings us back to exactly the amount of tax we owed between us but he now owes less and I owe more.

I'm not worse off at least but will ring them and tell them I shouldn't be entitled and ask if they can change it back.