Married persons tax eligibility

[My_little_pony]

Hi there,

One of my employees' husbands is coming to work for me in about a month. This will be his first employment in HK.

Question is, at what point do they become eligible for married person's tax?

They were married in March this year, she's worked for me for a few years and he will probably start for me in June sometime.

* Will she pay single persons tax up until the issue date of his HKID card (been approved and going through the trip to macau validation process now) and then married person's from that point or do couples have to fit a full year in? When he comes to work for me I'm guessing that he'll be eligible for married tax from day one.

What do I tell her? I'm supposed to be the all knowing, dancing, singing boss

[PDLM]

In effect they will jointly get $216,000 of tax free income for the entire tax year 2008/9 (plus any other allowances). They should submit their tax returns together and ask to be assessed jointly. IRD will charge them which ever calculation comes out lowest between joint and several taxation. This could depend on other allowances, children, housing, mortgage, etc, etc.

Note that if they were married in March and if she could reasonably claim to be supporting him before the end of March then she should be able to claim married person's tax allowance for the whole of the 2007/8 tax year as well! See: Allowances

[My_little_pony]

super....many thanks.....looked for that for ages