Investment Income: Tax Allowances

(asked on 20th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many claims were made for Personal Dividend Allowance relief in 2018, what the average amount was of those claims; and what the average income was of the claimants.


Answered by
Mel Stride Portrait
Mel Stride
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
This question was answered on 1st March 2019

HMRC publishes the estimated cost of tax reliefs annually and these can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs.

The dividend allowance was introduced in April 2016, operates on a tax year basis, and was set at £2,000 in 2018-19. Individuals do not need to claim for the allowance, as the Dividend Allowance is available to everyone with dividend income.

HMRC projects the dividend allowance to cost the Exchequer £695 million in 2018-19, with 5.09 million individuals benefitting. The median tax relief per beneficiary is projected to be £125 in 2018-19. The median income of those benefitting from the dividend allowance in 2018-19 is projected to be £35,000.

These estimates are based on the 2015-16 Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI), projected to 2018-19 using economic assumptions consistent with the office for Budget Responsibility’s November 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

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