Passing it on

The tax your family pays, not you.

Inheritance tax in Ireland is charged on the person receiving. A family home can create a large cash bill for children who have no cash. It is a solvable problem, but only in advance.

Book a first meeting ↓ All services

33% the rate charged above the threshold

€3,000 small gift exemption, per person, per year

Section 72 a policy written to pay the bill itself

Home / Inheritance

Finnegan Maguire Financial Advisors

Find out what your family would actually owe.

We work out the likely bill on what you hold now and show you the options while there is still time to use them. We work alongside your solicitor.

Book a first meeting

33% Charged on anything above the threshold.

To a child €400,000

Small gift €3,000 a year

Spouses Exempt

Forty one seconds, your figures

What your children would actually be handed

Set your own figures on the left and it works through the estate, each share, the threshold and what Revenue would take. Nothing disappears as it goes.

Your figures

The house is worth {{ hHouseV }}

Savings and investments {{ hSaveV }}

Children inheriting {{ hKidsV }}

Already gifted to each {{ hGiftV }}

A Section 72 policy of {{ hPolV }}

Leaving it to

Turn the voice on to hear it read aloud, or captions to read along.

What the estate is worth {{ q0 }}

{{ lab1 }} {{ q1 }}

{{ lab2 }} {{ q2 }}

{{ lab3 }} {{ q3 }}

{{ lab4 }} {{ q4 }}

{{ lab5 }} {{ q5 }}

Cash in the estate to pay it {{ q6 }}

With the policy, still to find {{ q7 }}

Group A threshold of €400,000 to a child, €40,000 to a niece, nephew or sibling, with 33% charged above it and the estate split equally. Dwelling house relief can exempt a home entirely where the person inheriting has lived in it, and business or agricultural relief can cut a bill by 90%, so a real case is often better than this.

Book a call to discuss these figures → Open the calculator →

The basics

How it works, plainly

Capital Acquisitions Tax is paid by whoever receives an inheritance or gift. Each person has a tax-free threshold based on their relationship to you, and anything above it is taxed at 33%. Thresholds are lifetime totals, and transfers between spouses and civil partners are exempt entirely.

€400,000 Group A: to a child

€40,000 Group B: sibling, niece, nephew or grandchild

€20,000 Group C: anyone else

Why it bites

Why the family home is the problem

A house can push a child well past their threshold on its own. The tax is then payable in cash, generally within months. Your family inherits a property and owes a sum of money they do not have.

Families sell homes they wanted to keep purely to pay the bill. It is one of the more avoidable sadnesses in Irish financial life.

The solution most people have never heard of

A Section 72 policy

A life assurance policy taken out specifically to pay an inheritance tax bill. Provided the proceeds are used to pay the tax, they are exempt from CAT themselves.

In effect you pay a modest premium during your life so that your family can keep the house and settle the Revenue with the policy instead of the property. It must be set up correctly and in advance, but it solves the problem cleanly.

Ask us about Section 72 ↓

The quiet one that works

€3,000 a year, every year

There is a small gift exemption of €3,000 per person per year, and it does not touch the threshold at all. A couple can each give €3,000 to each child every year. Over fifteen or twenty years, across several children, that moves a substantial sum out of the estate without any tax and without using any allowance. It only works if you actually do it, and it cannot be backdated.

Dwelling house relief Can exempt a home entirely where the person inheriting has lived there and meets strict conditions.

Agricultural relief Can reduce the taxable value of farmland very substantially, subject to conditions on ownership, use and the recipient.

Business relief Can do something similar for a trading business.

Before you do anything

What to watch out for

Every relief above has conditions that must be satisfied over years. This is why inheritance planning is done in your fifties and sixties, not by your executors.

01 Keep a record of gifts. They accumulate against the threshold and someone will have to account for them.

02 A will is not a plan. A will says who gets what. It does nothing about the tax.

03 Fairness and equality are not the same. Splitting things equally can produce very unequal tax bills depending on who receives what.

04 Talk to your family. Most disputes after a death are about surprise rather than about money.

Book a call

Pick a date and time that suits you.

No sales pitch, just a conversation about what you already have, what it is heading for and whether we can improve it. You will get a written summary either way.

Cian O’Sullivan Director and Financial Adviser, Finnegan Maguire

30 minutes Phone or video call, no charge

Rather just ring? Call 0818 44 55 66 or email go@splash.ie

What we advise on