Inheritance help

Muttleythefrog

la531983 said:

Jaffab123 said:

I am new to all this so here goes. My mum has been retired for many years and is i believe going to 
receive an inheritance from her brother who died recently, it could be a substantual amount.
I would like some guidence please anyone with a few questions i have. Question 1 How does inheriting
money affect benefits.
Question 2 How does inheriting money affect pension.
Question 3 does it make any difference that her brother lived in another country.
Question 4 How can she make sure that she doesnt end up losing a large  amount to the taxman etc
as for so many reasons this seems unfair.

Why does it seem unfair? The point of benefits is to help those with no money, if she has a few ten thousand in the bank why do you think the same rules should apply to your mum? And inheretances are taxed. Sorry to be blunt.

She can gift the entire legacy to charity if she doesn't want the burden of the cash. 

I think they were referring to taxation on inheritance (although I could be wrong)... which probably had been income already taxed one way or another in past. Others have advised in relation to any taxation including Inheritance tax on the estate that could be applicable. 

Regarding benefits - actually the vast majority of government expenditure on benefits is for those which are not means tested (i.e. they're not paid after a test for low income/resource)  if you include pensions... pensions loosely being like some other benefits contribution based or not means tested. Even if not including pensions still a substantial volume of benefit payments are non means tested (such as disability and new style ESA/JSA). To get a general grasp (and quite general given there isn't good breakdown of means tested versus non) of numbers refer here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0154/#:~:text=The DWP's total proposed expenditure,£265.5 billion (95%).

And as advised... and as you might imagine... simply giving away inheritances or other assets/savings can have implications for means tested benefits (if it is considered a deprivation of assets in order to get benefits or more of them) - we don't know in this case if any such benefits are claimed.