Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

Husband and wife

1 (1) The references in section 266 to an individual’s spouse shall include any person who was that individual’s spouse at the time the insurance or contract was made, unless the marriage was dissolved before 6th April 1979.

(2) Where an election under section 287 is in force, the relief to which either the husband or the wife is entitled under section 266 in respect of an insurance or contract on the life of the other or made by the other shall not be affected by section 287(4), (5) or (6).

(3) Where throughout a year of assessment a woman is a married woman living with her husband, then—

(a) if no election under section 283 is in force, section 274 and paragraph 6 below shall apply as if any relief to which the wife is entitled under section 266 were relief to which the husband is entitled; and

(b) if such an election is in force, section 274 and paragraph 6 below shall apply separately to the amounts paid by each of them, but as if for the limit specified in that section there were substituted, in relation to each of them, a limit of £750 or one-twelfth of their total income, whichever is the greater, plus any amount by which the payments in respect of which relief can be given to the other fall short of the limit so substituted.