Inheritance

nanaej

I can see what you are saying but people who win the National Lottery may decide to never work again but I don't see how you can force them to work if they are self supporting and not claiming anything from the tax payers.
If I had no children or grandchildren to consider I could have probably given up work at 50 using my early pension, inheritance from my parents and also my in laws.
As it happened my in laws money went to my daughters which I think was fair.

Frank

nanaej I take your point but what figure would you suggest? Don't think you could do any of that on £200k!

Well! In some ways I agree with Bently49

I do not think that huge inherited wealth is always the best use of the money though I do think that IT covers it up to a point...

but , for example, those who do inherit billions of £ from family businesses..heirs/heiresses of the mega wealthy who spend their lives doing the 'season' and going on jolly japes, filling pages of Tatler, Country Life, Hello and OK etc and not doing a 'proper job' shuld wwe expect them to earn an honest crust???

We are often quick to condemn the non-workers at the benefit end of the spectrum but less so at the wealthy end..... is there not a moral issue here..should everyone contribute to society by working..or is it OK just to pay tax??? (or avoid it)

Ariadne

It would be interesting to know what part of the country Bently49 is from.
I don't think you would get any house for £200,000 where I live but there are areas where you would easily get a semi detached house for that money.
I have not seen anything in his posts to suggest he lives in the Birmingham area. Have you?.

Frank

Perhaps he inherited a house in a nice area of Birmingham?

It's probably the sum he either has or expects to inherit!

Coming back to this after a day, I notice that bentley49 has not returned to defend his fatuous statement, so probably a wind up! I'm just wondering why he plucked the arbitrary figure of £200,000 from the recesses of his magnanimous brain!

Frank they don't want you giving it away and then claiming benefits.

Not much point hanging on to it at the moment as it is losing money due to inflation being higher than you can get in interest! The government seems to have decided it doesn't want anyone to have savings as it is government actions which have brought down interest rates. This is short termism as it gives youngsters no incentive to save at all.

We put away for theDGCs every month.DH Likes to think it will help. Personally I think they will be able to buy a bag of peanuts at eighteen .

£3000 per year per person giving. Not per person receiving. There are all sorts of rules.

Frank, I think that by "detrimental to your standard of living" they mean you should not leave yourself unable to afford essentials. A better car would probably not be classed as essential. If it were, we could all claim that silk sheets and caviar every day and twice on Sundays is essential.

This is just from memory but I think that £3000 is allowed to be given per person before that affects tax.

Anna

I am not really sure the definition of ''doesn't affect your own standard of living detrimentally''.

If I was not paying out for the grandchildren etc I could probably run a Volvo or BMW which I have ran in the past.

I now find a Honda Jazz plenty good enough and I usually change it just before the MOT.

I did have to get an MOT on the one before the last one because it took about 3 months from the time I placed the order till delivery but I had the cash waiting.

Frank

Yes. Nice idea for grandchildren.

I do it for DGD! Suppose I'll do the same for the one due in oct/nov. (hope she stops at that! In her 20's she was talking about 7! Can't afford that!)

Quite!

Yes. I was just going to mention that bit Ana. Son suggested I do it for him. #notflippinlikely!

I agree, Frank, that's another way of doing it. Apparently you can even give them a set amount each month, as long as it doesn't affect your own standard of living detrimentally.

Ana

I know those are the official figures but do parents keep a record every time they take their children / grandchildren out for lunch for example.
By doing this you are not giving them any money. You are just paying a bill so they have more of their own money.

Frank

Should have said that if you aren't going to be subject to Inheritance Tax it doesn't matter how much of your money you give away, unless you're trying to avoid paying care fees.

From the Saga website:

'Briefly, you can give away £3,000 a year without incurring any tax liability if you were to die soon after making the gift (twice that if you didn’t give away £3,000 in the previous year), and you can give certain gifts on the marriage of children, grandchildren and friends. You can give any number of small gifts up to £250, but you can’t give two small gifts of £250 to the same person or combine different categories of gift – e.g. give someone £3,250. Most other one-off gifts will become what is known as “potentially exempt transfers”, meaning that if you live for seven years after making the gift there is no tax to pay, but if you don’t live that long there may be tax to pay on a sliding scale.'

Bet Frank does!

I'm not sure exactly what the rules are but I think you can gift £1,000 a year to your children - I don't know if that's each child. No doubt someone on GN knows the actual rules.

Remaking my will recently, the solicitor started to tell me about how much I could give away each year to ensure I don't have to pay Inheritance Tax - told her it wouldn't be a problem - I intend to spend it all . I would add I don't have children whatever is left when I am gone goes to nieces and nephews

Is it still possible to gift £3,500 tax free to family? I think it is important to keep a record of such transactions eg to whom ,when and in which tax year.this made it possible to help DD with a deposit for a house without her having to declare it as tax. I think it is possible to do it for three years retrospectively.