I’m about to reach pension age – will my husband keep some of my tax allowance? ...Middle East

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Question: Hi, my husband got some of my tax allowance, or marriage allowance, for a few years now because I did not work or have much savings to pay tax, but I am now reaching 66. I will be receiving my pension though I won’t get the full amount. My question is can he carry on getting my tax allowance. Do we have to inform HMRC I will reach pensionable age or will they automatically know?

Answer: Starting to receive your state pension can feel like a big moment in people’s financial life. So, it is natural that you might be worried about how your current financial life might change once you start receiving it.

For example, it’s quite common for couples to be unsure about what happens to the marriage allowance at that point, especially when one partner hasn’t worked or paid much tax for a few years.

The good news is that reaching state pension age doesn’t automatically stop the marriage allowance. The marriage allowance lets you transfer £1,260 of your personal allowance to your husband, wife or civil partner. Your personal allowance is the amount you can earn before paying tax.

In your case, you can carry on transferring part of your tax allowance to your husband as long as you’re still eligible.

The rules are that you must be married or in a civil partnership, your own income must stay below the personal allowance of £12,570, and your husband must be a basic-rate taxpayer.

If those things remain true, the transfer can continue and it will reduce his tax bill by up to £252 a year.

The start of your state pension won’t trigger any automatic change with HMRC, other than the Department for Work and Pensions telling them what your pension income will be.

The pension is taxable, even though no tax is taken from it, and HMRC will adjust your records so it’s accounted for. You don’t need to ring and tell them you’ve reached pension age, but it’s worth checking your tax code and HMRC online account once your pension payments begin.

If your pension and any other taxable income together stay under £12,570, you can keep the marriage allowance in place. If they go over, you’ll no longer have spare allowance to transfer and you should cancel it through your HMRC account.

Given you’re only expecting a partial state pension, this is also a perfect moment to look at whether you can fill any gaps in your national insurance record.

To get the full new state pension, you need 35 qualifying years of contributions or credits, and you usually need at least 10 to receive anything at all. If you have missing years, you can normally buy back some of them for about £900 each year.

Every full year adds around £340 a year to your pension for life, which makes this one of the few investments that offers such a clear, inflation-linked return.

Before paying anything, check your national insurance (NI) record and get a state pension forecast on gov.uk. It will show how many more qualifying years you have left to reach the full amount and confirm whether buying extra years would actually boost your pension.

It’s well worth a quick call to the Future Pension Centre too, to make sure you’re topping up the right years.

So, to sum up, your husband can keep getting the marriage allowance if your income remains below £12,570, and you don’t need to tell HMRC separately that you’re reaching pension age.

But do take this opportunity to check your tax code, review your NI record, and consider whether buying missing years could give your retirement income a welcome lift. A few small steps now could make a noticeable difference to your finances later on.

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