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.
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.