Gift and Inheritance Tax

Overview of Gift & Inheritance Tax

We provide information on the following:

• Tax Free Thresholds
• Plan Affairs To Reduce Inheritance / Gift tax in the Future?
• Payment of Tax Due
• Relief for Residential Property
• Property Investors – Inheritance & Gift Tax
• Business / Agricultural Property
• Use of Trusts
• What Steps Can Be Taken to Avoid Tax Liabilities

This is the last opportunity for the Revenue to take some of your hard earned assets accumulated during your lifetime. After you pass on, the Revenue hand is out looking for payment of Inheritance Tax.

With increasing personal wealth many individuals find that the values of their estates leave their beneficiaries liable for this tax. It is important to plan for this tax well in advance both from a tax point of view and also to ensure that your assets pass to your beneficiaries in the way you would like them to.

Generally speaking we are dealing here with the transfer of assets within families and more often than not from parents to children or from other close relations.

While the tax has two names, i.e. inheritance tax and also gift tax, it is essentially the one tax. As the name implies inheritance tax arises where you inherit a benefit from a deceased person. Gift tax applies where somebody makes a gift to you during their lifetime.

When somebody makes a gift to you during their lifetime it may also involve other taxes such as capital gains tax and stamp duty in the case of property transfers.

There are special exemptions from the tax in respect of the following assets:

• Residential property
• Agricultural property
• Business assets

A liability to Irish tax can arise regardless of where the assets are situated e.g. receiving a foreign property can give rise to tax in Ireland as well as any tax that might be payable in the foreign country.