An amendment that would see an alteration to the Finance Bill, allowing non-working spouses to an unused personal allowance for their working partner, has been backed by ten Tory backbenchers.
It is expected to be raised by David Cameron in the House of Commons this week.
The current tax system has often been cited as being unfair to married couples, and it has been predicted that in certain circumstances a married couple collectively pay 20% more tax than certain divorced couples. The current system has been accused of punishing people who were ‘trying to do the right thing’.
Studies and analysis of the current taxation scheme has seen that couples may well be discouraged from cohabiting due to the tax repercussions this would have. In 2008, a mother lost a £9000 child care grant upon her marriage to and cohabitation with her partner; an example that was highlighted by many critics of the system.
This system was introduced under the reign of former PM Gordon Brown, who abolished married couples’ allowance in 2009. Surely then it is in the interest of the current coalition government then to alter potentially misjudged policies created by past governments.
Last year, before being elected as PM himself, David Cameron said that it was vital that children were brought up with both mother and father, and that the ‘family matters’. Cameron made vocal lamentations of Gordon Brown’s policy before the 2010 election, stating ‘if we don't help couples stay together, if we don't build strong families, then what we get is family breakdown, which has huge costs’.
However there has been little progress until now on this front since Cameron’s election, but it does appear that attempts are being made to make some of the manifestoes of the Conservative party into a reality.
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