The €3,000 annual small gift exemption should be abolished

How many people apart from the wealthy passing on their wealth use the small gift exemption. I have 2 children aged 20 and 21. What constitutes a gift paying for college accommodation, living expenses, driving lessons, car insurance etc. Would easily cost me over 3k each per yr but dont record any of it as a gift.
It’s not a gift. Parental support of school/college going kids is carved out in Section 82 of the legislation.

So are things like paying for your child’s wedding.
 
Brendan, this thinking all seems very North Korea/China/socialist utopia of choice. Every country in the world has social inequality and always will. Such is life. A great many socialists have tried and failed to change this.

If I have worked hard, saved hard, not frittered away my money, paid my taxes, I should ABSOLUTELY be entitled to give it to my children without the Taxman getting his grubby little mitts on more of it.
 
here here. Everything in Ireland these days seems to be about redistributing wealth. What about the generation who got off their backside, worked hard, saved, sacrificed holidays, spending etc, to save, be frugal and save for the rainy day, the future, their pension. It seems to be take take take and give more and more to the have nots in society. And there's a huge difference between the have nots and the lazy asses who will never work a day in their lives, get the dole straight from school and a free house in central dublin city. The people in this country who deserve help as the people who are working but struggling to buy a house or raise a family. They are the ones deserving of our help. Every budget adding a fiver or whatever to the dole, is wrong in my book.

The dole should be 300-400 a week if you lose you job and then cut for each 6 months thereafter until you get a job. the basic dole should be 100 euro a week maximum. At the height of the Celtic Tiger, I think I read there was 150,000 people on the dole. These people will never in the lives get a job. Never. Ever. Not Ever!!!! Is that right that we should support them finanically for 60-70 years?

And Brendan suggesting hair-brain ideas like that this, there's bigger fish to fry when it comes to tax changes in my mind.
 
Brendan, this thinking all seems very North Korea/China/socialist utopia of choice. Every country in the world has social inequality and always will. Such is life. A great many socialists have tried and failed to change this.

If I have worked hard, saved hard, not frittered away my money, paid my taxes, I should ABSOLUTELY be entitled to give it to my children without the Taxman getting his grubby little mitts on more of it.

here here. Everything in Ireland these days seems to be about redistributing wealth. What about the generation who got off their backside, worked hard, saved, sacrificed holidays, spending etc, to save, be frugal and save for the rainy day, the future, their pension. It seems to be take take take and give more and more to the have nots in society. And there's a huge difference between the have nots and the lazy asses who will never work a day in their lives, get the dole straight from school and a free house in central dublin city. The people in this country who deserve help as the people who are working but struggling to buy a house or raise a family. They are the ones deserving of our help. Every budget adding a fiver or whatever to the dole, is wrong in my book.

The dole should be 300-400 a week if you lose you job and then cut for each 6 months thereafter until you get a job. the basic dole should be 100 euro a week maximum. At the height of the Celtic Tiger, I think I read there was 150,000 people on the dole. These people will never in the lives get a job. Never. Ever. Not Ever!!!! Is that right that we should support them finanically for 60-70 years?

And Brendan suggesting hair-brain ideas like that this, there's bigger fish to fry when it comes to tax changes in my mind.
The "I worked hard all my life" again. Give me a break. People have been going on with that nonsense since forever.
Most people who are now retired would have next to nothing because of the financial crash if t wasn't for the political decision to print a load of money and borrow a load of money and re-inflate stock markets and capital markets. That's the reason private pensions are worth anything and the it's the reason the State has the money to pay public pensions and it's the reason houses are really expensive.

You don't have money to pass on to your kids because you worked hard all you life. You have it because when it was gone a political decision was made to replace it. The bill for that falls on the generations to come. Think of inheritance tax as giving them the money to pay the debts we ran up.
 
Not necessarily, what about adult child to elderly parent? What about rent free accommodation to relatives either saving for deposits, relationship breakdown? What about childless people?
There are already a bunch of carveouts as @Gordon Gekko pointed out, your suggestions could be added easily.

My only point here is that in the example I gave above, wealthy parents could give €1.8m tax-free to a child utilising the SGE while less wealthy parents would be limited to €400k. I'm quite open to the GroupA threshold being increased to €1.8m when the SGE is abolished - I just want the inequity removed.

Others might be interested in this Revenue [broken link removed]. Covers the mechanics of lots of this stuff, carve-outs etc.
 
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@Purple Now this is rubbish! Whether I personally have money is NOTHING to do with what decisions the ECB made to print money or not. My savings is AFTER TAX income that I worked for and saved. I didn't buy an apartment in Cape Verde, go on extravagant holidays, try to keep up with the Joneses or live beyond my means.

Give it over with this socialist redistribution of wealth nonsense. If you want to do a Bill Gates on it and leave nothing to your kids, then knock yourself out. Personally, I am more than happy for my children to benefit from my financial prudence and will do so under the rules of the State.
 
@Purple Now this is rubbish! Whether I personally have money is NOTHING to do with what decisions the ECB made to print money or not. My savings is AFTER TAX income that I worked for and saved. I didn't buy an apartment in Cape Verde, go on extravagant holidays, try to keep up with the Joneses or live beyond my means.
The actions of the ECB have everything to do with the value of your pension and the value of your property. If all you have is savings which accumulated from your salary post Crash then yes, your wealth has nothing to do with the actions of the ECB. If there are pension and property assets then at least 50% of their value is due to those political decisions. What your individual culpability is in the overall financial crash is irrelevant.
 
By your logic, then everyone benefitted from the actions of the ECB, so why should those that you are seeking to enrich benefit AGAIN to the detriment of the financially prudent?
 
By your logic, then everyone benefitted from the actions of the ECB, so why should those that you are seeking to enrich benefit AGAIN to the detriment of the financially prudent?
How did people who were in school at the time, those who have no pension and no property and who have seen a halving of the real value of their labour relative to capital, benefitted? If we'd let the whole thing go crashing down houses would be worth less than half of what they are worth now. Anyone who worked would be far better off in real terms. They could acquire more than twice as many assets for the same income.
 
They have benefitted by the whole economy not ending up in the toilet. Using the red herring of ECB financial policies of a decade ago which, in your own words saved the Irish economy in any event, should not distract from the reality of trying to move the goalposts of punishing people who are financially prudent/lucky through birth/lottery winners from doing with THEIR OWN MONEY what they want to do with it compared to those that frittered away their cash/were born at the wrong time/wouldn't work if their lives depended on it.

I'm (not) sorry if that makes me out to be a raving capitalist (I would not by any means be described as such!) but this populist, Sinn Fein distribution of wealth to the 'less well-off' nonsense needs to be cut down and out like weeds in a flowerbed.

Such is life and circumstance and it was ever thus.
 
They have benefitted by the whole economy not ending up in the toilet. Using the red herring of ECB financial policies of a decade ago which, in your own words saved the Irish economy in any event, should not distract from the reality of trying to move the goalposts of punishing people who are financially prudent/lucky through birth/lottery winners from doing with THEIR OWN MONEY what they want to do with it compared to those that frittered away their cash/were born at the wrong time/wouldn't work if their lives depended on it.
That's quite a few groups you are lumping in together there. As a believer that those who work should have more than those who live off welfare seeing people with such a disincentive to work pains me. If we want a society that rewards hard work and skill then we need to see a shift in wealth from capital to labour. Otherwise we are more likely to see the Child Killers in power and their version of a Socialist Utopia imposed on us.
I'm (not) sorry if that makes me out to be a raving capitalist (I would not by any means be described as such!) but this populist, Sinn Fein distribution of wealth to the 'less well-off' nonsense needs to be cut down and out like weeds in a flowerbed.
The Shinners are against a wealth tax. They want a "The Rich" tax. A wealth tax would tax wealth and that would include homes and pensions.
The Shinners have singled out "The Rich" as the problem in society, the group who are unfairly benefitting from the sweat of the "workers", much like the Nazi Party singled out the Jews, the KKK also singled out Jews, and their instruments the Blacks and Catholics, and the Hutus singled out the Tutsi. It's an age old trick by populists and it's as dangerous now as its ever been.
Such is life and circumstance and it was ever thus.
Yep, and due to the Social Contract and some wealth redistribution, along with Capitalism, we don't have to build walls around our villages and bring in our animals at night to protect them from raiders. It used to always be like that but it's better now.
 
My only point here is that in the example I gave above, wealthy parents could give €1.8m tax-free to a child utilising the SGE while less wealthy parents would be limited to €400k
I don't think that is correct way to view it. Your example includes 4 recipients (child, spouse and 2 grandchildren). It is fair enough to include the spouse but anything transferred to the grandchildren is not a direct benefit to the child. It's not actually given to the child. So excluding the grandchildren and the double counting of the CAT group, your total is closer to €920k.

Increasing the threshold to include the SGE does not reduce inequality. If anything it will further widen it. Those wealthy enough to transfer that kind of money would much prefer to gift €900k now instead of €330k with the hassle of using the small gift exemption every year in the future.

On the whole though, I think a better approach to removing the inequality is to put the onus of tax free gifting back on the donor. For example, if a wealthy parent can only gift €330k, a wealthy couple can gift €660k and it doesn't matter who they choose to give that money to. Their children can only receive €660k from their parents and that's it.

Another point on this which doesn't seem to have been discussed. It is assumed that the SGE is part of some very clever tax planning to transfer wealth. In reality, has anyone ever in any way been chased or investigated by revenue over using it or exceeding it?

My own anecdotal experience from when I was a student/graduate ~15yrs ago was that there were plenty of students or interns driving around in brand new cars, wearing expensive clothing, living in expensive apartments (renting). The gifts these people were receiving were far in excess of any SGE and I highly doubt that any of their parents were worried in any way shape or form about this
 
Makes sense @_OkGo_. As above I'm happy for the boffins at Revenue to figure out the details, I'm by no means an expert on it. I just want equal access to this estate planning tax exemption for all.


My own anecdotal experience from when I was a student/graduate ~15yrs ago was that there were plenty of students or interns driving around in brand new cars, wearing expensive clothing, living in expensive apartments (renting). The gifts these people were receiving were far in excess of any SGE and I highly doubt that any of their parents were worried in any way shape or form about this
To be fair those examples would appear to be mostly excluded -

2.3 Revenue’s view is that “normal” in this context refers to the nature of the expenditure rather than the amount and that it means expenditure that might typically be incurred by a person in the circumstances of the disponer. For example, payment of fees and accommodation costs for a dependent child attending college would be normal and would be exempt from gift tax – albeit not all parents would incur such costs. On the other hand, the purchase of a house for a child would not be considered part of the “normal” expenditure of a disponer, regardless of the financial means of the disponer and would not be exempt from gift tax.

2.4 “Reasonable” has to be judged by reference to the financial circumstances of the disponer. This requirement prevents a disponer from, for example, making payments that are disproportionate when viewed in the light of the disponer’s means. However, it does not, of itself, set a g

2.5 Revenue’s long held interpretation of the exemption provided by Section 82(2) CATCA 2003 is that it does not cover all payments by a parent to a child notwithstanding that such payments may meet the tests of “normal” and “reasonable” outlined in the foregoing paragraphs. The exemption only applies to the provision of support, maintenance or education. This implies at least some level of financial dependence on the part of the child. Revenue does not accept that gifts to a child who is financially independent can come within the terms of the exemption. Neither does it accept that gifts of a capital nature to a child are exempt from gift tax under this section.
 
There are already a bunch of carveouts as @Gordon Gekko pointed out, your suggestions could be added easily.

My only point here is that in the example I gave above, wealthy parents could give €1.8m tax-free to a child utilising the SGE while less wealthy parents would be limited to €400k. I'm quite open to the GroupA threshold being increased to €1.8m when the SGE is abolished - I just want the inequity removed.

Others might be interested in this Revenue [broken link removed]. Covers the mechanics of lots of this stuff, carve-outs etc.
As the system currently exists the banding is discriminatory. Remove the banding structure and give each person a lifetime limit of gift/inheritance. I still don't agree with the logic of introducing higher wealth tax. People in the main have wealth as a result of past earnings, good decision making, good fortune and in some instances all of the above of previous generations of their families.
 
How did people who were in school at the time, those who have no pension and no property and who have seen a halving of the real value of their labour relative to capital, benefitted?
If they were in school, then the "bailout" paid.for their education!

If we'd let the whole thing go crashing down houses would be worth less than half of what they are worth now. Anyone who worked would be far better off in real terms. They could acquire more than twice as many assets for the same income.
If we'd let the whole thing go crashing down, then we'd be Greece or even worse. Assets might well be cheap, but there'd be no jobs to buy them with! Health, education, social welfare would be slashed, really slashed, not a mere trim around the edges.
 
Do you not think this commission will only take on suggestions about new taxes and reducing tax breaks while ignoring any suggestions of taxation reductions or abolition.
This is probably just a smoke screen to allow them to do it by saying it was a submission received by the public.
 
If they were in school, then the "bailout" paid.for their education!
So they got €6k-€8k a year spent on their education but the real value of their future earnings was halved. That's not a good trade.
If we'd let the whole thing go crashing down, then we'd be Greece or even worse. Assets might well be cheap, but there'd be no jobs to buy them with! Health, education, social welfare would be slashed, really slashed, not a mere trim around the edges.
Absolutely, we all benefitted but those who had houses and a pension (people like me) benefitted most. For us there was no down side. That's the point.
 
Do you not think this commission will only take on suggestions about new taxes and reducing tax breaks while ignoring any suggestions of taxation reductions or abolition.
No. There is a orthodoxy that the State and State spending is universally good. The only debate is how the money should be raised, not whether it should be raised. The same orthodoxy says that the solution to shortcomings in State services is more money, not the better use of the money that's already there.
This is probably just a smoke screen to allow them to do it by saying it was a submission received by the public.
That's exactly what it is.
 
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