Marriage tax breaks: who's affected?

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls was speaking on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, debating with Chancellor George Osborne ahead of this week's Budget.

He reiterated his party's opposition to marriage tax breaks, which featured in the 2013 Autumn Statement, telling viewers that: "marriage tax breaks affect one-third of married couples, 85% of the beneficiaries are men, only one in six families with children get it."

We've written about who benefits from the measure before, although there have since been updates to the figures.

Ed Balls is right on the expected impacts on different groups. Of the 18 million families in the UK, 12 million are married or in a civil-partnership. The government's best estimate is that 4.1 million families - where neither partner is a higher-rate taxpayer - will benefit to the tune of £196 between them.

One in six families with children are eligible (there are 7.7 million families with children and 1.3 million benefit), although only 60% of families with children are married anyway. Of married families with children, over one quarter are benefiting.

Finally, the Treasury also expects 84% of beneficiaries to be men. This sounds odd at first, given it's a benefit for couples - but in practice its effect is to reduce the income tax liability of the spouse who's already paying tax at the basic rate. In the vast majority of cases, the recipient is expected to be a man. As HM Revenue and Customs says, this reflects earning patterns in the population more generally.