The government plans to introduce a tax break for married couples before the 2015 election, the BBC understands.
It comes after criticism of the chancellor’s plan to axe child benefit for higher rate taxpayers from 2013.
There were concerns it would penalise families where one parent stayed home to look after children – but their partner paid the 40% tax rate.
Prime Minister David Cameron said earlier it was fair to ask the better-off to help tackle the deficit.
But he told the BBC: “If you look for instance at the issue of the stay-at-home mother, in the coalition agreement [with the Liberal Democrats] we do talk about having some sort of transferable tax allowance to help couples in that way.
“So obviously there are things we’ll try and do to make sure that all of what we do, if you look across the piece dealing with the deficit, is fair.”
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said government sources had told him there would be a tax break for married couples introduced in this Parliament.
Although Conservative policy was to limit the tax break to basic-rate tax payers, he said that had not been repeated in the coalition agreement between the Tories and the Lib Dems – adding that Chancellor George Osborne might seek to partially compensate stay-at-home parents aggrieved by the child benefit cut.
On Monday Chancellor George Osborne said that from 2013 child benefit would be removed from families with at least one parent earning more than about £44,000 a year.
But families with two earners paid just under the threshold each, would still be eligible. The government says it is too complex and expensive to work out overall household incomes to administer the benefit.
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