{"id":26559,"date":"2023-11-14T22:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harvestmoonnews.com\/?p=26559"},"modified":"2023-11-14T22:59:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:59:00","slug":"marriage-allowance-mayhem-thousands-of-women-face-pension-tax-bill-bombshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harvestmoonnews.com\/politics\/marriage-allowance-mayhem-thousands-of-women-face-pension-tax-bill-bombshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage allowance mayhem\u2019: Thousands of women face pension tax bill bombshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sir Steve Webb said hundreds of thousands of pensioners, mostly women, who benefit from marriage allowance could be affected. The tax break allows one-half of a married couple to transfer 10% of their personal allowance to the other.<\/p>\n

But Sir Steve warns a combination of state pension hikes and personal allowance freezes means a growing number of pensioners who shared part of their tax-free allowance will be dragged over the 90% threshold.<\/p>\n

The partner at consultants LCP said: \u201cThis is yet another unwelcome by-product of the year-on-year freeze in the value of the tax allowance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of thousands of women have signed over part of their tax-free allowance in order to reduce their husband\u2019s tax bill. But as the state pension rises many of these women may now find they end up with an unexpected tax bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could see marriage allowance \u2018mayhem\u2019 as hundreds of thousands of couples have to decide whether to carry on with this arrangement or cancel it, to avoid low-income pensioners being dragged into the tax net.<\/p>\n

READ MORE <\/strong> State pensioners may be able to boost payments by \u00a33,600 a year<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe sooner the freeze on tax allowances comes to an end, the better.\u201d More than two million couples benefit from marriage allowance \u2013about one in three pensioners.<\/p>\n

It is available to couples where one is a basic rate taxpayer and the other a non-taxpayer. One half of the couple can sign over 10% of their personal allowance, which is currently \u00a312,570, to their partner. The partner will not have to pay 20% tax on \u00a31,260, a total saving of \u00a3252 per year.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the husband is the taxpayer. Until now, many women could hand over 10% of their personal allowance to their husband as their taxable income was below 90% of the threshold. But under the triple lock, the full state pension is due to go up by 8.5% next April to \u00a311,500 per year \u2013 which is more than 90%.<\/p>\n

As Chancellor Jeremy Hunt faces pressure to honour the triple lock in next week\u2019s Autumn Statement, \u00adpensioners pushed over the threshold are set to receive a tax bill if they do not cancel the marriage allowance.<\/p>\n