Lee Sharpe looks at some of the intricacies of an important tax form for spouses and civil partners.
This article looks at some of the complications to the Form 17 procedure for married couples and civil partnerships. The regime applies only to legally married couples and civil partnerships, where the spouses, etc., are living together as a couple during the tax year (ITA 2007, ss 836, 837).
Note, however, that tax law assumes that spouses are living together, unless:
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they are separated under a court order;
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they are separated by deed of separation: or
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they are in fact separated in circumstances in which the separation is likely to be permanent.
So, for most couples it will be quite a difficult test to fail. For convenience, we shall use ‘married couples’ and ‘spouses’ to include civil
