Caring

I don't see why you couldn't do this as a favour and receive gifts in return. This is what many people actually do when they look after an aged relative and they don't even think about suggesting it is a salary. The 'gifts' would be 'potentially excempt transfers' and might be liable to IHT if your father doesn't survive 7 years. TBH this is what my sister and I did with my father, though neither of us gave up a job to do so.

If there is a danger of IHT being payable you'd have to keep a strict record of what monies are 'gifts' and which are refund of 'expenses.

HTH

tim

I don't really want to address the financial issues, but have you thought about the practical ones?

Looking after someone 24/7 is a big responsibility and many people struggle with it. You develop an intense love/hate relationship with the person you are caring for, and often one or the other person within that relationship finds it too difficult. I employ care staff and they find 37 hours per week pretty demanding with two days off per week.

You also have to think about the impact on your career if you give up work. If your father genuinely is at the point where residential care is needed then you don't need me to point out his mortality. The average stay in a nursing home is less than two years. Would you be able to pick up where you left off or would you lose a great deal- in terms of seniority, increments etc?

There are often places set-up to help carers- The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has a place near us- I don't know how much of Britain they cover, but they would give you some ideas around the practical issues.

Neb

£450 is only the start, every trip to the doctors, every outing, will bump the figure up. Your moving in with him - provided you are doing it for the right reasons and you think you will be able to cope - is the perfect solution.

IHT-wise it's probably a bit late to do much. If he gave you part of the house you could both live in it and share the expenses without it becoming a "gift with reservation", but that doesn't help because house prices are plummetting and he'd have to live a full 7 years from the date of the gift.

Regular gifts out of income are IHT exempt so he could give you an allowance out of his pension. I suppose if you really insisted on arguing yourself into being an "employee" you could do so but most people would see this as a family arrangement with no Income Tax implications.

On the IHT issue: regular gifts out of income are IHt exempt as the previous poster points out, but the executors will need to demonstrate to capital Taxes that the gifts were indeed from surplus income, not out of capital. You need to think (1) whether this is so and (2) what financial records should be kept to demonstrate it.

Robert

If you contact Counsel & Care for the Elderly on 020 7241 8555 they will be give you some advice on your situation. This is not answering your query directly, but it may help generally. CCE is a charity that deals with just these scenarios.

Rob Graham

Thanks to all for the advice on this difficult situation / decision.

Chris