Gift Tax for House Deposit

kkilkenny

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We plan to purchase a small buy to let house. The bank have told us financially no problems getting the mortgage, however we need a deposit of 35k, only have 23k in joint savings, so are short around 12k.

Husbands parents want to give him a gift of 35k. If it goes into a sole account in his name but he transfers 12k to our joint account to make up the shortfall for the house, am I correct in saying this 12k would be seen as a gift to both of us (as its benefitting me) and could be classified under the small gift exemption (ie 3k each from both parents). The remaining money kept in his account would go against his threshold?

Im aware of something along the lines of if A gives B and C a gift and B gives it to C, its taken as A giving it to C. Or am I just overthinking it :)

If he uses that remaining gift money to buy things for our household ie appliances/bills/furniture etc, do the revenue see it as my father in law gifting that money to me also?

Second question is the 6k small gift i would be getting from his parents, do I need to make a tax return for this? I got a gift from an uncle of 19k about 20 years ago (all tax/return was sorted by solicitor at the time) but that puts me over the current threshold, so does this mean that the small gifts of 3k each need to be put through as a retun, as ive gone past 80% of the threshold? Or are they not included as part of the threshold limit.
 
To be seen as 4 gifts of 3000, it would be safer to have your parents in law transfer the money to your joint account from their joint account or else 2 transfers from their individual accounts, that way no question of it being a small gift x 4.
 
It would be far better if they transferred €12k right now from their joint account to your joint account; that would cover your shortfall and be covered by the Small Gift Exemption.

Then they could do the same again on 1 January 2019 and the same 12 months later.

Alternatively, they could send the whole €35k to you both now, with €23k of being a loan which they could then choose to write-off over the next year and a half.
 
Gifts between spouses are exempt from capital acquisition tax. So if your father in law gives money to your husband it is only that transaction that matters from a CAT perspective.
 
as laid out. each parent is giving each of you €3K each. that's makes up 4 X €3K = €12K. this is covered under gift tax exemption so no future tax allowances are used up. On the 1st of January 2019 they can do the same transaction and same applies.
 
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