IHT gifts from surplus iincome with joint account!

Ossiedave

We are  giving our daughter regular gifts from our surplus income. However all our income and expenditure goes through a joint account with my wife. I contribute 66% 0f the income, my wife 34%. How is the income/expenditure apportioned for inclusion in the the IHT403 form  ie:  50/50 66/40 etc. I cant find the answer anywhere.

Keep_pedalling

If half your joint expenditure is equal to or more than your wife’s income I would say that the excess income is 100% yours. It might make things easier to have your incomes go into individual accounts, and just use the joint account for household expenditure. 

Ossiedave

Keep Pedalling

Not sure what you mean do you mean the excess income is 100% mine or the excess expenditure is 100% mine

Flugelhorn

Keep_pedalling said:

If half your joint expenditure is equal to or more than your wife’s income I would say that the excess income is 100% yours. It might make things easier to have your incomes go into individual accounts, and just use the joint account for household expenditure. 

that is what I do - my income is twice my husband's - I give excess to the offspring out of my own account

Jeremy535897

If all your income and expenditure goes through one joint account, I would suggest that the legal analysis is that, at the point of entry to and exit from the account, everything is owned 50:50, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.

In other words, whenever each of you adds to the account, you are giving half of what you put in to the other spouse, and if one spouse buys an item for their own use, the other spouse is giving them half the cost of it at the point the money leaves the account. I would therefore record half of the regular gifts on each IHT403.

Keep_pedalling

Ossiedave said:

Keep Pedalling

Not sure what you mean do you mean the excess income is 100% mine or the excess expenditure is 100% mine

Sorry if I was ambiguous, I meant excess income. If you had excess expenditure you would not be able make these exempt gifts .

What ever way you do this the outcome should be the same unless you have blundered with your wills and IHT is due on the first death. 

pysifr

I earned much more than my wife, and in our house, ever since we married, what is "my income" goes into a joint account, and what is her income goes into her own account. All living expenses come from the joint account (funded be me). So my wife's surplus income is her whole salary and other personal income. So her ability to give "gifts out of surplus" income is not far from mine! Plus can spouses not  transfer money back and forth between them with no IHT or tax liabilities?