# Career break and give tax credits to husband?



## gingernutter (12 Jun 2013)

Hi,
I’m looking for a bit of tax advice.  My situation is as follows:
I currently work full time (public sector), salary €65k per yr. 
My husband also works full time (private sector), salary €64k per yr.  
We have one son who is in crèche (€850 p mth) and are expecting twins at the end of the yr.  Trying to decide if we’d be better off if I was to take a year’s career break and have no childcare costs for the yr.   I would then transfer my tax credits to my husband.  Does anyone know what his net take home pay would be if we were to do this? He currently takes home approx. €3,200 per mth. 
We don’t receive any rent allowances or credits or anything like that.  
I'd appreciate any advice!


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## PolkaDot (12 Jun 2013)

Assuming you bother currently equally share your tax credits and tax rate cut off bands, you could assign €9,000 of your cut off band to your husband. This would mean he would be able to earn an extra €9,000 before he starts paying 41% PAYE.

This works out as €9,000 x 0.21 = €1,890 p.a. or €157.50 extra per month.

You can also give him €1,650 of your annual tax credits. This would mean he would pay €137.50 less tax per month.

Total increase in his net pay, approx €295 per month. There may be other credits or factors based on your own personal circumstances.

Loads of info here:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/credits/married-persons-taxation.html


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## guerngirl (12 Jun 2013)

Hi similar situation with slightly different figures. I earn 60k husband earns 110000k. What would his monthly take home pay be if I allocated all credits to him and no longer worked (childcare issues also) ?

Thanks.


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## Shirazman (14 Jun 2013)

guerngirl said:


> Hi similar situation with slightly different figures. I earn 60k husband earns 110000k. What would his monthly take home pay be if I allocated all credits to him and no longer worked (childcare issues also) ?
> 
> Thanks.



Assuming that you both currently equally share your tax credits and the tax rate cut off band, then you could assign your unused personal tax credit and the unused portion of your standard rate cut off band to your husband.  This would mean that an additional €1,740 approx of his monthly salary would be taxed at the lower (20%) tax rate.   The tax saving on this would be about €365 monthly and the value to him of your unused personal tax credit is €137.50 per month.  So I reckon that he'd be bringing home an extra €500 per month.   

Please note the assumptions behind these calculations - you'll need to check your your 2013 Tax Credit Certs to confirm how the pair of you have allocated your tax credits and rate bands.

[Finally, note that at year-end you will be able to claim a tax refund in respect of the unused portion of  your PAYE credit (which you cannot allocate to him) - this will be worth €137.50 to you for each month when you weren't working.]

Remember the easiest way to adjust the allocation of your tax credits and bands between the pair of you is through Revenue's excellent PAYE Anytime system.


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