Simple tax transfer ended in a bill for £191

Mrs J.S. writes: I am 72 and my husband is 76. I am not a taxpayer and my husband pays the basic rate. I kept reading I should claim the married couple’s tax allowance and transfer my unused allowance to my husband, so I did this. All was well and good until I received an ON THE face of it, this should be simple. But the whole situation has been made more complex by recent changes that mean savings income up to a certain level is not taxed. This exemption is on top of the normal personal tax allowance.

My guess is that you have some savings income and that Revenue & Customs slipped up, either by taxing it in error or by transferring too much of your allowance to your husband.

All I can say with complete certainty is that as soon as I asked the Revenue to look into this, you were called by your tax office and told that the same error had affected a number of taxpayers. Your £191 is on its way back to you, along with a further £45 by way of an apology from the taxman.