Marriage and the tax / mortgage implications

[turtle]

Hello!
I've only just found this website and I have to say it looks really great! Anyway! I've just got married recently and I was wondering about the tax implications. We are both earning more than 50k each so judging from the information already posted by others, I won't benefit greatly by changing to joint assessment, but I should anyway in case things change in the future and one of us ends up on less than 32k pa? Would I be correct? And I can't lose out anyway?

I'm more wondering though about three things -
1: my husband owns the house we live in and I have been paying rent, since i moved up. I've been getting the rent credit even though he didn't tell the revenue that i was renting (which was silly really as i think it would have been less in total than the amount you can 'earn' tax free from rent by renting an empty room in your occupied house, if that still exists). I am continuing to pay 'rent' but now it is more like half the morgage costs so a) is it true that he will get double morgage relief now that he is married (i.e- we'll both get morgage relief)? b) if so, will the revenue 'notice' when i cancel rent allowance and he claims this extra relief, all on the same house and could he get in trouble?

2: As I never bought a house before I got married, have I affectively 'wasted' my FTB's grant, or whatever it's called now? Or would I have a chance to buy property in my own name and use this?

3: I have inherited some propery (or part of as it's shared with other family members) and money. I read something about CGT - should i let this influence the taxation option I choose now that we are married?

Hope you can help! Sorry for the long post!

 

[ClubMan]

Hello!
I've only just found this website and I have to say it looks really great! Anyway! I've just got married recently and I was wondering about the tax implications. We are both earning more than 50k each so judging from the information already posted by others, I won't benefit greatly by changing to joint assessment, but I should anyway in case things change in the future and one of us ends up on less than 32k pa? Would I be correct? And I can't lose out anyway?

You should probably inform Revenue of your marriage and opt for joint/aggregated taxation anyway even if, as you say, it will not make any difference right now.

I'm more wondering though about three things -
1: my husband owns the house we live in and I have been paying rent, since i moved up. I've been getting the rent credit even though he didn't tell the revenue that i was renting (which was silly really as i think it would have been less in total than the amount you can 'earn' tax free from rent by renting an empty room in your occupied house, if that still exists). I am continuing to pay 'rent' but now it is more like half the morgage costs so a) is it true that he will get double morgage relief now that he is married (i.e- we'll both get morgage relief)? b) if so, will the revenue 'notice' when i cancel rent allowance and he claims this extra relief, all on the same house and could he get in trouble?

He should have been availing of the rent a room scheme or else declaring the rental income (this has other implications). He probably should get independent, professional advice.

2: As I never bought a house before I got married, have I affectively 'wasted' my FTB's grant, or whatever it's called now? Or would I have a chance to buy property in my own name and use this?

There is no FTB grant any more. What you mean is your FTB status which involves lower rates of stamp duty and higher rates of owner occupier mortgage interest relief. The issue of one spouse being a FTB and the other being a non FTB and buying a subsequent private residence is covered elsewhere in several threads which might be worth digging out.

3: I have inherited some propery (or part of as it's shared with other family members) and money. I read something about CGT - should i let this influence the taxation option I choose now that we are married?

Probably. Again you might need professional advice.

 

[turtle]

Thanks Clubman for the quick response!

I am a bit surprised actually by the anwers! I thought there'd be a more hard and fast rule over CGT implications on marriage and also on morgage interest relief! I didn't think we'd need to get professional advice but that was silly of me really as I've been looking for the answers and can't find them so they can't be that straight forward!

Just to clarify - the husband only didn't tell the revenue as he never got around to it, (same as his tax credits!). He was only gettting 1/2 of the €7k he was allowed get so he didn't think it would be an issue as he wouldn't have owed anything anyway. His name is on the deeds though so I was insistent we kept things straight and paying my way.

I checked through some of the other posts again and I'm getting the impression from the revenue definitions that if I buy another house, with my own money, and we move there so that it is our permanent residence, then the FTB equivalent thing will apply to me (so long as i meet all the other criteria) and so long as we don't use the proceeds from the sale of the husbands house - i.e. if we were to rent that house out? Though this doesn't fully sit with the fact there is a such thing as a 'married persons' interest relief which is twice that of a single person. I presume both 'married people' can get this double allowance but will the husband be able to get it if only his name is on the deeds?

Similarly with the CGT -I thought there'd be a clear rule on that - I guess I wondering if we both will be eligble for Capital gains tax if the property was sold, even though I am it's not in both our names.

I know it might be a good idea to contact the professionals but if the information is out there, I'd rather get it that way! I don't think there is anything too unusual about our situation apart from the rent issue but thanks anyway for the help!

 

[Altin007]

Hi

I have a question relating to a similar circumstance. When my girlfriend/fiancee & I were going out she was paying me rent & claiming her tax relief, and I was declaring the allowable income from this to Revenue. We got married last April and I have notified Revenue that we are married and want to be joint assessed for taxation.
Can she still claim for Rent Relief so long as I declare it on a tax return now we are married?

 

[ClubMan]

We got married last April and I have notified Revenue that we are married and want to be joint assessed for taxation.
Can she still claim for Rent Relief so long as I declare it on a tax return now we are married?

I'm pretty sure that the answer is no regardless of what married taxation option (of the three possibilities) you opt for.