Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the difference in tax paid by (a) married and (b) unmarried couples in each category of taxation where marital status is relevant in the most recent 12 months for which data is available.

The Marriage Allowance was introduced in April 2015 to recognise the importance of marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system. The estimated tax relief given to couples through the Marriage Allowance in 2020-21 was £580 million.

Personal Taxation is usually assessed on individuals’ incomes rather than couples or households. As a result, HMRC do not hold administrative data on which to underpin an assessment of the difference in tax paid by married and unmarried couples.

The cost of the Marriage Allowance, and other reliefs, are set out in HMRC’s tax relief statistics publication, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/minor-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs/estimated-cost-of-tax-reliefs-statistics.