Married Tax Free Allowance

I was wondering is it of any benefit in terms of your tax free allowance to be assessed as a married couple or is it just as beneficial to be assessed singly. We have no children and are married one year. I thought I had read somewhere that it was possible for one person in a marriage to go on a lower tax band and the other to remain on the higher one. Was I dreaming?

If you are both top rate taxpayers there is no real benefit at present, you should still make the revenue aware of the fact that you are married though, in case of a change of circumstances later.

You could always download the ROS offline application and fill in sample tax returns to compare various scenarios.

Heres the link you need:

[broken link removed]

THere are worked examples at the bottom.

In short, if both couples are earning over the €32k lower band, then it makes no difference, and you can continue being assessed as singles.

However, if one of you earns below the €32k, then this person can transfer their remaining tax band to the other spouse.

Look at the examples, they are very easy to follow

paddyd said:

However, if one of you earns below the €32k, then this person can transfer their remaining tax band to the other spouse.

Click to expand...

Note that the maximum amount that can be transferred is 23k for 2006.