Gifts under £250 - do they go on IHT403

newbietoprobate

My father paid money into the accounts of the grandchildren fairly regularly - usually on their birthdays but also other occasions. Most of the time these were under £250 per child per year but there were sometimes larger amounts. I will need to declare the gifts over £250 on the form but do I need to list every gift under £250 for the last 7 years as it's exempted anyway? It's going to be a long form if so! 
Also if I want to get the larger gifts exempted as 'gifts out of income' and there needs to be a regular pattern of gifts to the grandchildren, should I list the gifts under £250 to prove a pattern? He definitely had a lot of excess income through pensions so no issue there.
Hopefully I'm not making this too complicated for myself!

K_potts

I only listed larger gifts, I was told if you are citing the smaller gifts as out of income you will need to have a spreadsheet detailing income and expenditure to prove there is the income to be gifted.
i was also told it is good practice when planning your own estate to note down any gifts and keep your own financial records so the executors do not has to do this ‘from scratch’ 

JGB1955

As executor of my father's estate (c. £600K) I am, for the first time, thanking him for his meanness/miserliness/stinginess, as I know, without a shadow of a doubt that he never gifted anyone anything like £250 in his entire life, let alone the £3K that we gift every year.  Made probate easy - 10 days from submission to grant.

Keep_pedalling

newbietoprobate said:

My father paid money into the accounts of the grandchildren fairly regularly - usually on their birthdays but also other occasions. Most of the time these were under £250 per child per year but there were sometimes larger amounts. I will need to declare the gifts over £250 on the form but do I need to list every gift under £250 for the last 7 years as it's exempted anyway? It's going to be a long form if so! 
Also if I want to get the larger gifts exempted as 'gifts out of income' and there needs to be a regular pattern of gifts to the grandchildren, should I list the gifts under £250 to prove a pattern? He definitely had a lot of excess income through pensions so no issue there.
Hopefully I'm not making this too complicated for myself!

For gifts from excess income you are going to need a great deal of detail on his expenditure, and based on previous posts you don’t really have that info, so you need to be very careful claiming any such exemptions.

xylophone

but there were sometimes larger amounts. 

https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts

Would any of these fall into the £3000 exemption?

Do you expect your grandfather's estate to be liable to IHT after your have taken his NRB/RNRB and any transferable allowances (if he was a widower)?

Relative was exor of his relative and found claiming the gifts out of income a real chore, necessitating going back for fourteen years - he was fortunate enough to have the records but it was still a chore.

I'd avoid claiming unless you have meticulous records.

newbietoprobate

Although I have access to bank statements, I think maybe it will be too difficult to accurately assess income and expenditure even though it is obvious from looking at his accounts that he could afford it. Trying to find the obvious things and list them, not that there are many as he didn't give much away either it seems! Plenty of saving and not a lot of spending! It will be easier if I do not have to list each gift under £250 as tracking each transfer to many different accounts and who they belong to could be tricky

newbietoprobate

Some of the larger gifts could be exempt with the £3k and it rolled over one year to cover the rest

pip895

I'm not sure, but don't gifts under £250 only not count if they are the only gift going to that recipient..  A monthly gift of £100 would count for instance - I believe. 
I had to go through the process last year.  In my fathers case I ascertained that his savings were increasing over the period before cobbling together the data required to fill in the form.  I found the process very frustrating - even though my father kept everything very well ordered, that table was difficult to fill in and badly designed imo.  Many of the categories of expenses listed on the form didn't really make sense - why have care home fees but no where to record other care related costs for instance.  My father gave heavily to charity - lots of DD's & SO's all below £250 individually but more in total to quite a few organisations - I would have needed pages to record them all - I ended up just ignoring them..