Gifts to children seven years date

[Lootman]

Don’t forget that “gifts out of income” are exempt from IHT. So as well as documenting all gifts you would need to record your “surplus” income for the year as well. I suspect this would be VERY hard for HMRC to challenge. As there is no other tax requirement to measure “normal” expenditure.

An example might be if I pay £50,000 for my daughter's wedding.

In a sense that is a gift to her. But I would never think to include that in my record of gifts made, whether from capital or income. It is just a parental expense, even if my daughter is 35.

[scrumpyjack]

Don’t forget that “gifts out of income” are exempt from IHT. So as well as documenting all gifts you would need to record your “surplus” income for the year as well. I suspect this would be VERY hard for HMRC to challenge. As there is no other tax requirement to measure “normal” expenditure.

An example might be if I pay £50,000 for my daughter's wedding.

In a sense that is a gift to her. But I would never think to include that in my record of gifts made, whether from capital or income. It is just a parental expense, even if my daughter is 35.

If you take the view that the recipients of the 'gift' are the wedding guests, it is probably covered by the fact you can make gifts of up to £250 per person to an unlimited number of people!

[SebsCat]

Don’t forget that “gifts out of income” are exempt from IHT. So as well as documenting all gifts you would need to record your “surplus” income for the year as well. I suspect this would be VERY hard for HMRC to challenge. As there is no other tax requirement to measure “normal” expenditure.

An example might be if I pay £50,000 for my daughter's wedding.

In a sense that is a gift to her. But I would never think to include that in my record of gifts made, whether from capital or income. It is just a parental expense, even if my daughter is 35.

Should be fine if you do actually pay for it (ie you contract with & pay the suppliers directly ). That would be no different to you hosting any other expensive party. OTOH, if you just gave the cash to your daughter and she then paid for the event then that would definitely be a gift. The key test is whether there's a transfer of value involved - in the first case there isn't but their clearly is in the second.

NB: there's an IHT exemption of £5k to a child & £1k to anyone else when they marry. Hence a married couple could give their daughter & her groom up to £12k tax free. And up to £18k using the general £3kpa allowance if that's not used elsewhere that year. So you would only need to pick up the really big costs directly.

[Bouleversee]

What if you buy your child or grandchild a car as I know some have done when they were 18 (and regretted it later when they found the youngster couldn't take it to Uni because there was no parking).