Whidbey
Silver Member
Good post. The same situation occurred with me. I inherited from my mother in my mid forties. I had gone through some rough times but at that point in my life I had a job with a pension, owned a home and except for a reasonable mortgage was debt free. I finished college at 30 and my last two years was totally broke. I never would have thought of asking for help but if my son or daughter was in that situation I would help them in a New York second. It is a much better use of the money as opposed to leaving them money when I pass.And $60,000 limit per year into the joint bank account of a child and their spouse, when we wanted to help them buy their first home and then as kids came along. (Suburban San Francisco convenient to their jobs, an ultra expensive region).
I was determined to not repeat what Dad had done back when estates over $500,000 were taxed 50%. (Y2K). Sis, I, and IRS inherited equal shares of the cash in his estate.
And I was frustrated that Sis wouldn't agree to make substantial charitable contributions in place of letting IRS get 50% of the excess over the exemption. I argued this was the only time in our lives we had this opportunity for paying half price for a charitable contribution, she argued that inheritance was her only retirement-savings plan and she couldn't afford it. (I had set up a more complex trust to make gifts from the estate as the follow-on to Dad's simple trust but then her surprise decision made that extra complexity pointless).
Dad never thought this little apple orchard was worth much but then in his last two years real estate here went crazy, comparables increased a much as 25% in a month (!) as rich San Franciscans bid up similar parcels for weekend vineyards. He suddenly switched from never gifting us cash to $10k Christmas presents to Sis and me. By that time the money would have been far more helpful years earlier.
Nobody knows if the lifetime exemption from gift tax will ever be rolled back to the level of 20 years ago but we've decided on gifts that will make that irrelevant.
YMMV...
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