If your spouse or civil partner earns more than you, the marital tax exemption allows you to transfer £1,260 of your personal allowance (the sum you will receive tax-free per tax year) to them.

If your claim is approved, it will reduce the higher earner’s tax bill for the current tax year; however, you will be able to backdate your claim if you are eligible.

Only people in the following situations will be eligible to apply:

• You must be married or in a civil union (only living together does not qualify).
• One of you must be a non-taxpayer between April 6, 2021, and April 5, 2022, which normally means earning less than the £12,570 personal allowance (see previous personal allowance rates).
• The other spouse must be a basic 20 percent rate taxpayer (this allowance is not available to higher or additional-rate taxpayers). This means you’d have to make less than £50,270 (see previous tax year rates) or £43,662 if you live in Scotland (see previous tax year rates).
• You and your partner must have been born on or after April 6, 1935 (if you weren’t, there’s another tax benefit).

So, in a nutshell, one of you must be a non-taxpayer and one must be a basic-rate taxpayer.

Not sure if you're a non-taxpayer?

Your personal allowance (the amount you can receive tax-free) can vary from the amounts above in rare cases, but your tax code letter would tell you. This may be due to the fact that you have a company vehicle, owe taxes, or your savings interest puts you over the limit.

How much can I get?

For the tax year 2021/22, the marriage tax exemption is worth up to £252. If you’re qualified and apply successfully, you’ll get the tax break every year after that, so there’s no need to keep reapplying.

You can backdate the claim for up to four tax years (currently 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, and 2020/21) in addition to the current year’s allowance. 

The amounts for each year are worth up to:

• 2021/22 – £252
• 2020/21 – £250
• 2019/20 – £250
• 2018/19 – £238
• 2017/18 – £230

This means you will get up to £1,220 if you claim for this tax year and backdate the maximum four years. This will happen without you having to check any boxes or make a special request – it will happen automatically.

However, if you want to claim for the 2017/18 tax year, you must do so by April 5, 2022. When the new tax year begins after this date, the furthest you’ll be able to backdate your marriage tax allowance claim will be to 2018/19. Although you’ll still get roughly the same amount – the current tax year plus up to four backdated years – the £230 you should have received for 2017/18 will be lost.

How the Marriage Tax Allowance is calculated

A spouse with unused personal allowance will pass £1,260 to the other (so basically 10 percent of the full allowance). They are only allowed to transfer £1,260 – neither more nor less.

How to apply for Marriage Allowance

Claim My Tax Back can help you claim for Marriage Allowance. Our application is 100% completed online and only takes a couple of minutes.

Once you apply for Marriage Allowance once, you do not need to apply for it again as it stays in your tax code.

Click the button below to get started with your claim!

Click here to claim for Marriage Allowance

Published on: 06/05/21