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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think family money is a curse?

213 replies

BeatieBourke · 01/08/2021 00:24

Of course, if your landed gentry and have trust funds coming out of eyeballs there might be more autonomy and independence than the rest of us have...

Similarly, if you're absolutely struggling to feed your family, you'll understandably put up with all sorts for the sake of feeding your kids. I've been there.

But otherwise, being beholden to the dangled carrot of an inheritance, not being able to plan your own future, knowing that other people have the power to make or break your financial security? Nah, you're alright ta. I'll take staying in rented accommodation my whole life and live without holidays/decent cars/other keeping up with the Jones' stuff with whatever tiny buffer I can manage to scrape together from one month to the next and a degree of dignity.

AIBU?

OP posts:
DaphneDeloresMoorhead · 01/08/2021 11:52

@SushiGo

The thing about inheritance (if I get one, and it doesn't all go on care home fees etc) is that I'd probably by 50/60 even 70 by the time I got it - this is true for most people.

At which point I'll be well past the most expensive part of my life, and it would just be bonus money. Nice of course, but absolutely not worth rearranging my life for in the hope that we'll be quids in.

Much better to just crack on doing our own thing and making our own financial plans, and to encourage our parents to spend the money they have on care when they need it.

Exactly this - if I do inherit then I will spend part of it in a property for DD so she doesn't have to wait for us to fall off our perch to enjoy the family wealth
MyMabel · 01/08/2021 11:56

@LipstickLou you’re friend doesn’t work because she knows one day she’ll inherit 1m.. possibly 40% less after tax? -depending on her age, does she realise how much you would need to stop working? It’s a lot more than 1m 😂 I think she’ll have a bit of a shock coming to her.

LipstickLou · 01/08/2021 12:01

@MyMabel

The friend is a bit of a fantasist. She inherited £300k three years ago. All spent!
Recently asked me for money, said i will pay you back when i get my inheritance. I wouldn't be surprised if the mother skips a generation. She is a shrewd old lady and knows her daughter is a spendthrift.

IcedSpice · 01/08/2021 12:16

@AdoptedBumpkin

My views on inheritance are rather controversial, so I'll keep them quiet, but I am inclined to agree at least in theory. Smile
Why vague post though ? Hmm
Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 12:21

I think it's odd that people lives lives are governed by something so beyond their own making/choosing

I’d agree with you if it was true. I always knew I was the only beneficiary of my parents’ wills. I never gave it a moment’s thought until they died.

GnomeDePlume · 01/08/2021 12:22

Families? Bloody nightmare

Totally agree with that!

Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 12:25

Also the tax on it is absolutely bizarre, how someone’s does, leaving their own money and possessions to their children and the tax man takes nearly half of it. Absolutely diabolical and an insult to the dead.

The first £325k is exempt so I can’t summon up much sympathy. The living pay IHT not the dead.

Bryonyshcmyony · 01/08/2021 12:26

@Blossomtoes

Also the tax on it is absolutely bizarre, how someone’s does, leaving their own money and possessions to their children and the tax man takes nearly half of it. Absolutely diabolical and an insult to the dead.

The first £325k is exempt so I can’t summon up much sympathy. The living pay IHT not the dead.

It's already been taxed once
Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 12:29

It's already been taxed once

All money is taxed numerous times. We pay income tax, then VAT, petrol tax, road tax, council tax ... It’s the only time the increased value of residential property is taxed.

Bryonyshcmyony · 01/08/2021 12:31

@Blossomtoes

It's already been taxed once

All money is taxed numerous times. We pay income tax, then VAT, petrol tax, road tax, council tax ... It’s the only time the increased value of residential property is taxed.

Capital gains tax?
Bryonyshcmyony · 01/08/2021 12:32

(no such thing as road tax!)

GnomeDePlume · 01/08/2021 12:48

@MyMabel this is part of why I want to stop DB's Trust Fund King ambitions in their tracks. I can see it all going wrong.

I also dont like the idea of grown adult DCs having to go cap in hand to their weird uncle to get access to money which they have inherited.

Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 12:50

Capital gains tax?

Not on a primary residence. And of course there’s such a thing as road tax, it just happens to be called vehicle tax - which you know perfectly well.

IcedSpice · 01/08/2021 12:55

@Bryonyshcmyony

(no such thing as road tax!)
"Road tax implies you are being taxed to use the roads and the money goes back into the roads - that's not correct." The DVLA - rebuked for an advert calling for people to pay their road tax - now calls it vehicle tax. The Post Office calls it car tax.15 Aug 2013

Even so, why do people say that? it is a bloody road tax, you're not allowed on the road without it.

MyMabel · 01/08/2021 13:01

@Blossomtoes

I don’t understand what you mean? No sympathy because it’s over 325k of money left to family members?

So if I was a smaller amount of money you’d sympathise? It’s not anyone fault they’ve got a substantial amount of money that’s been left to them. I still think it’s pretty poor to tax any money at 40% that’s been earned and left to someone’s children.

MsAwesomeDragon · 01/08/2021 13:07

Dh's uncle left everything to him when he died. There had never been an expectation of an inheritance at all, and DH certainly didn't feel beholden to him.

My parents have a will that says everything they own will be split 3 ways between my brother, sister and me. I'm not actually expecting anything because I'm fairly certain it'll all be eaten up by care fees. I see/help out my parents because I love them, not because I'm thinking about an inheritance.

Dh's parents are unlikely to leave us anything. Mil because she doesn't have anything to leave, she's in a council flat and relies on her state pension with a little top up from her late husband's work pension. Fil has more assets, but they will probably go to his step children because he actually sees them, whereas he's only seen DH twice in the past 15 years (once was our wedding)

Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 13:18

[quote MyMabel]@Blossomtoes

I don’t understand what you mean? No sympathy because it’s over 325k of money left to family members?

So if I was a smaller amount of money you’d sympathise? It’s not anyone fault they’ve got a substantial amount of money that’s been left to them. I still think it’s pretty poor to tax any money at 40% that’s been earned and left to someone’s children.[/quote]
You understand perfectly well what I mean, I suspect. IHT applies to the proportion of an estate that exceeds £325k. If a residential property forms part of it, it increases to £500k. In what world would anyone reasonable object to paying tax on an unearned windfall of more than half a million?

MyMabel · 01/08/2021 13:25

@Blossomtoes

The kind of person who that is split between multiple siblings, that is on the absolute breadline and is about to lose their house, the tax and the split between siblings means she won’t actually pocket much in the way of re-building her life at all.

Some people have money, some people don’t - I just don’t find it fair to dictate what you can and can’t take from whats left by the deceased. It seems cruel.

IcedSpice · 01/08/2021 13:36

[quote MyMabel]@Blossomtoes

The kind of person who that is split between multiple siblings, that is on the absolute breadline and is about to lose their house, the tax and the split between siblings means she won’t actually pocket much in the way of re-building her life at all.

Some people have money, some people don’t - I just don’t find it fair to dictate what you can and can’t take from whats left by the deceased. It seems cruel.[/quote]
so the tax is on amounts OVER the specified amounts? why not tax it?

THIS is what makes me crazy "The heirs of the late sixth Duke of Westminster paid no inheritance tax on the bulk of his £8.3bn family fortune following his death in 2016. Probate records show that Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, who died aged 64 in August 2016, left a personal estate of £616,418,184 after payment of debts and liabilities."

IcedSpice · 01/08/2021 13:37

Had the Grosvenor estate bequeathed to the new Duke of Westminster been liable for 40% inheritance tax, the amount owed to the Treasury would have been not far off the government’s entire death duty take for the last financial year.

PegasusReturns · 01/08/2021 13:39

@IcedSpice do you know why that was? Assume complex trusts but I’m curious.

Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 13:41

[quote MyMabel]@Blossomtoes

The kind of person who that is split between multiple siblings, that is on the absolute breadline and is about to lose their house, the tax and the split between siblings means she won’t actually pocket much in the way of re-building her life at all.

Some people have money, some people don’t - I just don’t find it fair to dictate what you can and can’t take from whats left by the deceased. It seems cruel.[/quote]
There would have to be a huge number of siblings for this to be the case. Even if there were ten, they’d end up with at least £50k - that’s not peanuts in anyone’s world.

Completely agree @IcedSpice. It’s scandalous.

MyMabel · 01/08/2021 13:42

@Blossomtoes

Can you find a house for £50k?

Blossomtoes · 01/08/2021 13:45

[quote MyMabel]@Blossomtoes

Can you find a house for £50k?[/quote]
No but then I don’t think owning one outright is a right. It’s a healthy deposit.

IcedSpice · 01/08/2021 13:47

[quote PegasusReturns]@IcedSpice do you know why that was? Assume complex trusts but I’m curious.[/quote]
Something like that I imagine - when they talk about raising taxes for the rich all the time, they would be better off just making the rich PAY their taxes!