US Parents Gifting Money to me in the UK

Hi all,

Hopefully a relatively simple question. Not sure if taxes is the right area so I can move this post if needs be.

I am a US Citizen living in the UK, and have just received ILR in the UK and will apply for UK citizenship in the next year or so. I am married to a UK citizen and we have 3 children (2, 0, and 0).

My parents have both retired now and want to give a gift to me to help raise my family. We have looked into the yearly gift allowance and will adhere to the $15k/$16k limits per parent per year. They plan to deposit this money into my US Current Account, which is a joint account with my mother.

A few questions:

- Will I have to pay any tax on this in the UK? I plan to transfer the money to my UK account via TransferWise as I've used them in the past and seem the easiest option.
- If we are expecting sums of $16k/year, is TransferWise the best way to move money regularly between the US and UK? It seems like a bit of a manual process but I am happy to keep doing it this way as it was simple the few times I've used it.
- IF (and this is a big if), my parents wanted to offload their estate more quickly, e.g. they would give us $30k/year as it would be my mother and father each giving $16k, do my parents have to do this from separate accounts in their own names? Only asking as they hold most of their cash in joint accounts.

Appreciate any help on this, many thanks.

Lee

Hi all,

Hopefully a relatively simple question. Not sure if taxes is the right area so I can move this post if needs be.

I am a US Citizen living in the UK, and have just received ILR in the UK and will apply for UK citizenship in the next year or so. I am married to a UK citizen and we have 3 children (2, 0, and 0).

My parents have both retired now and want to give a gift to me to help raise my family. We have looked into the yearly gift allowance and will adhere to the $15k/$16k limits per parent per year. They plan to deposit this money into my US Current Account, which is a joint account with my mother.

A few questions:

- Will I have to pay any tax on this in the UK? I plan to transfer the money to my UK account via TransferWise as I've used them in the past and seem the easiest option.
- If we are expecting sums of $16k/year, is TransferWise the best way to move money regularly between the US and UK? It seems like a bit of a manual process but I am happy to keep doing it this way as it was simple the few times I've used it.
- IF (and this is a big if), my parents wanted to offload their estate more quickly, e.g. they would give us $30k/year as it would be my mother and father each giving $16k, do my parents have to do this from separate accounts in their own names? Only asking as they hold most of their cash in joint accounts.

Appreciate any help on this, many thanks.

Lee

I’ll give you my opinion based on similar experience.

Will I have to pay any tax on this in the UK? I plan to transfer the money to my UK account via TransferWise as I've used them in the past and seem the easiest option. No taxes due, it is always the giver’s responsibility for taxes on gifts. I use Transferwise all the time


- If we are expecting sums of $16k/year, is TransferWise the best way to move money regularly between the US and UK? It seems like a bit of a manual process but I am happy to keep doing it this way as it was simple the few times I've used it. You could create a borderless Wise account to make it easier and have your parents wire the money to that account then it is extremely easy to move it to your account in GBP


- IF (and this is a big if), my parents wanted to offload their estate more quickly, e.g. they would give us $30k/year as it would be my mother and father each giving $16k, do my parents have to do this from separate accounts in their own names? Only asking as they hold most of their cash in joint accounts. No, it can be from a joint account. We currently do this for our children