New Married Allowance

You can claim the new Married Allowance from 6 April 2015 if:

* You are married or in a civil partnership, &

* Your annual income is £10,600 or less, plus up to £5,000 of tax-free savings interest, &

* Your spouse/partner's annual income is between £10,601 and £42,385, &

* You were born on or after 6 April 1935.

How it works is you transfer £1,060 of your Personal Allowance which you are not using to your spouse/partner. to give them an additional allowance, which will reduce their tax by £212 in 2015/16, (provided of course that they are already paying at least that amount).

The difficulty arises in making the application to HMRC. Until very recently you could only do this by registering online on the Gov.uk website. After registration and a substantial delay HMRC acknowledge this by email and you then need to proceed to an online verification of your identity brfore the allowance can be transferred. Unfortunately the Identity verification process has been beset by many problems.

However the good news now is that if you cannot use or have access to a computer you can now write to HMRC to make the claim. The letter has to come from the person transferring  and needs to include names, address, dates of birth, National Insurance Numbers for both parties. The address is Pay As You Earn, H M Revenue & Customs, BX9 1AS, UK

If you have already registered online but cannot complete Identity verification, you can phone HMRC helpline for assistance. If however you are eligible for help from our charity Tax Help for Older People, then we can assist you by using our email facility with HMRC.

If you successfully apply during 2015/16 then this will remain in place each year until your circumstances change.