Tax on Gifts Following Death

Romablade

My father recently died and as he didn't have a will my mother inherited his estate. The value of the estate is below the current Inheritence Tax threshold and there is no property involved.

My mother now wishes to give a share of the inheritence to myself and my siblings. This share is likely to be around the £20,000 mark.

My question is, would the £20,000 gift be taxable as either Gift Tax, Capital Gains or Income Tax. I'm a higher rate tax payer.

If it is taxable, would it be better for my mother to make the gift to my children (her grandparents) who are not tax payers and/or spread the gift over 2 or 3 years?

Thanks for help, HMRC website was hopeless...

CLAPTON

there is no gift tax in the UK
no CGT is payable on a gift in this circumstance
no income tax is payable on a gift
in fact there is no tax to pay at all.

the only potential issue is that if her own total estate is more than the IHT limits and she were to die within 7 years then the gifts would be potential exempt transfers...

3plus1

CLAPTON wrote: »

the only potential issue is that if her own total estate is more than the IHT limits and she were to die within 7 years then the gifts would be potential exempt transfers...

To get around this, it might be worth varying the father's will? Unfortunately, I have no idea of the difficulty/costs involved in doing this.

CLAPTON

3plus1 wrote: »

To get around this, it might be worth varying the father's will? Unfortunately, I have no idea of the difficulty/costs involved in doing this.

there is no will

but in principle it is possible to vary the inheritance... but without knowing the mother's likely total estate its not really possible to know whether its worthwhile.