Marriage Tax Allowance

[The Gauge]

I'm looking into the Marriage Tax Allowance where a non tax paying spouse can give £1,260 of their tax code to the other tax paying partner.

I pay basic rate of tax, and my wife was made redundant in December 2025 and has remained out of work. She received 3 months redundancy pay.

Can we/her/me claim Marriage Tax Allowance as she is now out of work?
Can it be back dated to the date of her redundancy?
Does her redundancy pay affect any claim?
Does she claim/apply for it, or me?

Edited by The Gauge on Friday 6th March 21:37

[konark]

Its worth applying for if your wife is likely to earn less than £11,300 for the coming tax year (26/27)

It can be backdated 3 years iirc, but Tax year ends 5th April so were still in 'last year' i.e 25/26., only worth it if she earned less than £11,300.

The donor, your wife, is the one who applies.

I think its online form unless backdating, then its a downloadable paper form and post it.

[Countdown]

The Gauge said:

Can we/her/me claim Marriage Tax Allowance as she is now out of work?
Can it be back dated to the date of her redundancy?
Does her redundancy pay affect any claim?
Does she claim/apply for it, or me?

1. You can but it's only worth it if she earned less than £12,570 last year and is likely to do the same this year
2. It's automatically calculated based on the full year so as long as you claim it you'll get the tax reduction
3. If she got more than £30k redundancy then the surplus will count towards her taxable earnings and this might push her over £12,570
4. Either of you can claim.

[The Gauge]

Thanks,

So it seems that as she has earned above the tax code allowance for the last few years and also this tax year then we can't claim, and she would have to go through all of the next financial year earning less than the allowance before she could claim.
We are hoping she will get employment in the coming weeks and if so the married tax allowance wont apply full stop.

Thanks for clarifying