Tax allowances

Your personal allowance and the blind person's allowance reduce the level of income you pay tax on so you get some of your income tax free.

We explain briefly in this section how much the allowances are and how they work.

You can get more information by using the links below:

Personal allowances

Blind person's allowance

Personal allowances

• You only receive tax allowances if you are resident in the United Kingdom or if you are a citizen of an EEA country (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom. Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland are not members of the European Union (EU) but citizens of these countries have the same rights to enter, live in and work in the United Kingdom as EU citizens).
• If you meet the residency rules set out above you will get a personal allowance no matter what your level of income. Different rules may apply however where you are not ‘domiciled’ in the UK and claim to use the ‘remittance basis’ of taxation. More information on this can be found in our Migrants section. A personal allowance reduces the amount of income that you pay tax on.
• The personal allowance is £7,475 for 2011/12 for those under 65 throughout that year. The allowance is increased for those over 64 in the year, depending on their age and income level. All personal allowances can be reduced below the standard amount down to nothing if your income is over £100,000, but we aim this guidance at low-income taxpayers so do not cover those issues here.
• For 2011/12 the personal allowance is set to rise to £7,475, but it is likely that only basic rate taxpayers will receive the benefit of this increase as the income limit before higher rate tax starts to be paid is also planned to be reduced at the same time.
• You can see how allowances work in the example Cheng.
• Between 65 and 74 the allowance is £9,940 for 2011/12, rising to £10,090 for someone 75 and over. More details can be found in our Pensioner section on how age allowances are restricted for those aged 65 and over.
• You can get more information about tax allowances in Tax and NIC rates.

Blind person's allowance

• Blind person's allowance (BPA) is an allowance of £1,980 for 2011/12. It reduces the amount of income that you will pay tax on, and is given in addition to the personal allowance. Unlike the personal allowance you have to make a claim for it.
• You do not have to be entirely without sight to claim the BPA.
• You can claim if you are registered as blind with a local authority in England and Wales or for those people living in Scotland/N Ireland your sight must be so bad as to stop you performing any work for which eyesight is essential.
• If you are already being looked after by an eye specialist they will check your sight and, if appropriate, certify that you are blind. You can ask your GP to refer you to an eye specialist.
• Social Services should then contact you to see if you want to be added to the register, and if you do, then the date that the consultant signed your certification form is the date of registration.
• Once you are registered, contact HMRC, as soon as possible and tell them that you want to claim BPA.
• If in the previous tax year you obtained evidence of blindness on which the registration will be eventually made, but you only registered the following tax year, you can claim the relief for both years.
• If both you and your husband or wife or civil partner are entitled to claim BPA you can each claim independently.
• You can transfer any surplus BPA to your husband or wife or civil partner to reduce his or her tax. Again contact HMRC to claim to transfer it.
• If you are a non-taxpayer and your spouse or civil partner pays tax you can still transfer your BPA to them.
• You can see how transferring surplus blind person's allowance works in the example Paul.

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