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HMRC policy tweak could mean UK households keep £4,000 more of salaryChancellor Rachel Reeves is being called to introduce policies floated by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage MP.NewsJames
Rodger Content Editor10:40, 30 May 2025Chancellor Rachel Reeves is being called to introduce policies floated by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage MP. HMRC could tweak a policy to save UK
households £4,000 - if the Labour Party governemnt bows to demands and adopts a Reform UK stance. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is being called to introduce policies floated by Reform UK leader
Nigel Farage MP.
Mr Farage suggested a fully transferable marriage allowance should be introduced to the tax system which would allow one spouse to transfer their unused personal tax allowance to the other.
Current rules mean households with two earners are losing almost £4,000 in hard-earned cash to the tax man compared to single-earners. Daniel Herring, a tax and fiscal researcher at CPS,
said: "Families often function as integrated economic units, pooling resources and making collective decisions about earning, spending and caring responsibilities.
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"The tax system should reflect this reality rather than treating each individual in isolation, as if family financial decisions happen in separate bubbles. In terms of fairness and moving
the tax system towards neutrality, Reform’s proposals are excellent policy."
Article continues below While Farage promised up to £80bn worth of new spending – including scrapping the two-child benefit cap and increasing winter fuel payments – he did not explain
exactly how they could be paid for.
Helen Miller, the deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “The risk is that we hear much more about sizeable giveaways on tax and benefits while getting nothing like the
same amount of specificity about the big cuts to spending on public services that would be needed for the plan to be implementable.”
Tim Montgomerie, a political commentator and Reform supporter, told the BBC : “I wouldn’t say the numbers do add up yet, I readily concede that.” He said it was too far away from the
election to demand the party deliver a fully costed policy platform.
Article continues below Farage himself admitted his sums might not add up, but insisted they gave “an idea of direction, policy, of priorities, of what we think is important, of what we
think it is going to cost”.
“We believe lifting the two-child cap is the best thing to do, not because we support a benefits culture but because we believe for lower-paid workers this actually makes having children
just a little bit easier for them,” he said.
“I think it’s ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous, that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks, and yet, if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth
and probably succeed in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life,” he said.