Income Tax Act 2007 section 453

Tax reduction for qualifying maintenance payments

Section 453 provides a tax reduction for individuals who make qualifying maintenance payments, setting out how to claim it and how the amount of the reduction is calculated.

• Individuals who make qualifying maintenance payments can claim a tax reduction for the tax year in which those payments fall due.
• The tax reduction is 10% of the total qualifying maintenance payments due in the year, subject to a cap equal to 10% of the minimum amount of married couple's allowance (as defined in section 43).
• The relief must be claimed — it is not given automatically — and is based on when payments fall due, not when they are actually paid.
• The tax reduction is applied at Step 6 of the income tax calculation in section 23, alongside other tax reductions, and cannot reduce a person's tax liability below nil.