Tax Implications of Gift from Parents

[Rachan M.]

Good Morning,

My parents, who live overseas, want to gift me some money which I would use to buy my first investment property.

Does anyone know the tax implications of doing this? Will this gift count as income, and will I have to pay taxes on it?

Thanks so much!

[Daniel Dietz]

We just did this with my parents gifting some money to both my brother and I. My *understanding* after talking to my tax man, who is also my parent's tax man, is that there is NO tax due. They DO have to file a form since the amount was over the 'yearly allowable exclusion' of around 14K somewhere. They have NO 'current tax due' - this is to keep track of how much of their 'lifetime limit', which is about 5 million, that they have used up. Meaning if the gift were say 24K - 14K yearly allowed, they have use 10K of their 5 million limit. Just a formality in our case since their estate is NO where near that much.

All figures are VERY ballparkish for example only.

Dan Dietz