Most age related tax allowances have been phased out. However, the Married Couple’s Allowance (MCA) is available to elderly married couples or those in a civil partnership where at least one member of the couple were born before 6 April 1935. The allowance provides for tax relief by deducting 10% of the allowance from the amount of tax due on taxable income.
The MCA can reduce a tax bill to zero but cannot result in a refund of tax.
For the current tax year, the maximum amount of allowance is £8,695. This means that qualifying claimants can receive a maximum deduction of £869.50 from their Income Tax bill. The allowance will increase to £8,915 in 2019-20.
There is also one further age related allowance, known as the Maintenance Payments Relief (MPR). The MPR reduces a taxpayers’ Income Tax bill for maintenance payments made to an ex-spouse or civil partner. Again, this relief is only available where at least one of the ex-spouses or partners were born before 6 April 1935. There are certain conditions that must be met in order to claim this relief such as that the ex-partner can’t have re-married or formed a new civil partnership. The MPR works in the same way as the MCA with a maximum deduction of 10% of £3,360 i.e. £336 in the current tax year.