Married couples urged to claim £1,150 tax break by April – or miss out on more than £200

MARRIED couples are being urged to apply for a £1,150 tax break before the current tax year ends on April 5.

If you're eligible for the marriage tax allowance and miss the deadline, you'll lose out on £212 in free cash.

Introduced in 2015, the tax perk applies to couples where one is a non-taxpayer (earning less than £12,500) and the other is a basic-rate tax payer (earning less than £50,000 a year).

It allows couples to transfer 10 per cent of their personal allowance (the amount you can earn tax-free each tax year) between them in order to reduce their yearly tax bill.

This year that's worth £250, but you can backdate your claim for four years - currently back to 2015/2016 - meaning you could get up to £1,150 back.

This is because the perk was worth was worth £212 when it was first introduced in 2015, and the following tax year it was worth £220.

For the 2017/2018 year, the allowance was worth £230 and for the last tax year it was worth £238.

But once the new tax year kicks in on April 6, you'll only be able to make a claim from the tax year starting April 6, 2016.

So if you fail to claim before April 5, you'll miss out on the £212 that you could previously claim for the 2015/2016 tax year.

Sean McCann, chartered financial planner at financial services firm NFU Mutual, told The Sun: "Now is the last chance for couples to backdate claims before the first year is lost forever.