4

I'm EU national, I've been living in UK for the past 10 years, I'm a permanent resident here, working full time. My parents live abroad, they've never lived in UK and they will never move here. They're planning to send me a large amount of money as a birthday present and I've got some questions:

  1. Do I need to pay any tax on it?
  2. Do I need to declare it to HMRC or the bank?
  3. Can I put it in savings account, or will I have to pay tax on the interest I earn because it's "income"? If so, how would I go about that, would I have to declare it somewhere?

Your help and advice would be much appreciated, thank you in advance.

Improve this question
6
  • I don't know about the UK specifically, but interest is almost always income. Have you never filed a tax return before? Do you not get any interest on your normal bank account?
    – user253751
    Jan 4, 2021 at 18:44
  • @user253751 most people don't have to file tax returns in the UK - the system is set up so that the automatic deductions are correct for most people.
    – GS - Apologise to Monica ♦
    Jan 4, 2021 at 18:51
  • @GS-ApologisetoMonica while convenient, that's sad in a way, since it presumes that everyone only receives income from one method.
    – RonJohn
    Jan 4, 2021 at 19:00
  • @RonJohn the way deductions are calculated works even if you have multiple jobs (the tax authority does some co-ordination to figure that out)
    – GS - Apologise to Monica ♦
    Jan 4, 2021 at 19:04
  • 2
    @RonJohn If you're self-employed you have to fill in a tax return. Dividends, capital gains and interest income all have allowances below which they are tax free. Above those you either need a tax return or to fill in a separate form/write to HMRC.
    – GS - Apologise to Monica ♦
    Jan 4, 2021 at 19:19

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

The UK doesn't have any gift tax and you don't need to declare anything assuming the money is being sent by some kind of bank/money transfer. If it was being carried as cash then you do have to declare that for money laundering purposes, but that'd obviously be a bad idea for many reasons anyway, and the declaration in itself isn't a problem.

In theory inheritance tax can occasionally apply to gifts given in the 7 years before the death of the giver, but as your parents don't live in the UK that can't possibly apply to you.

You would be potentially liable to tax on any interest you earn once you deposit the money in a savings account. However interest rates are very low at the moment and there's an allowance for most people before you have to pay any tax, so in most cases you probably won't actually get enough interest to have to pay tax.

You could also put up to £20,000 per year into an "ISA" savings account which are always tax-free no matter how much interest you earn.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .