Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of married couples are (a) eligible for and (b) in receipt of the married couples tax allowance in each (i) local authority and (ii) parliamentary constituency.
HMRC publishes the estimated cost of the Married Couples Allowance (MCA) for the years up to the current tax year in their “Estimated costs of principal tax reliefs” publication, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
The estimated cost of the MCA is:
£m | |||||
2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
345 | 330 | 290 | 240 | 195 | 165 |
In 2018-19 there are estimated to be around 270,000 claimants of MCA. HMRC does not hold estimates of the total number of married couples. Reliable estimates of the numbers in receipt of MCA are not available at local authority or constituency level due to insufficient sample size.
The published estimates are based on the 2015-16 Survey of Personal Incomes projected using economic assumptions consistent with the OBR’s October 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.