CAT at 33% on a gift, after the group threshold.
Gift tax (CAT) due
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Group threshold
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Taxable amount
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Net gift after CAT
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Your breakdown
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Capital Acquisitions Tax in plain terms
Ireland taxes large gifts and inheritances through Capital Acquisitions Tax, or CAT, charged at a flat 33 percent. The twist is that you do not pay on the whole gift. Everyone has a lifetime tax-free threshold that depends on their relationship to the person giving, and CAT only applies to the value above that threshold. On top of that, a small slice each year is always exempt. This calculator applies the right threshold, knocks off the annual exemption and any earlier gifts you have received in the same group, and taxes the rest at 33 percent.
Which group threshold applies to you
The three thresholds are generous at the top and tight at the bottom. Group A, for a child receiving from a parent, is 400,000 euro over a lifetime. Group B, covering a brother or sister, a niece or nephew, a grandchild, or an aunt or uncle, is 40,000 euro. Group C, for everyone else such as a friend, a cousin, or an unmarried partner, is just 20,000 euro. Gifts between spouses or civil partners are entirely exempt and do not touch these thresholds at all. Critically, the threshold is cumulative across your lifetime, so a gift today eats into the amount you can later inherit tax-free from the same group.
That cumulative feature catches people out badly. A nephew who received 30,000 euro from an aunt years ago has only 10,000 euro of his Group B threshold left, so a second gift, or her eventual estate, is taxed far sooner than he expects. The threshold also counts gifts from every person in the group combined, not each donor separately, which is the opposite of how the small gift exemption works. The prior benefits box on this tool exists precisely so you can feed in earlier gifts and see the real taxable figure rather than a misleadingly low one.
A €60,000 gift from an aunt
Say an aunt gives her nephew 60,000 euro, and he has received nothing from that group before. An aunt falls in Group B, so the threshold is 40,000 euro. The first 3,000 euro is exempt under the small gift exemption, then the 40,000 euro threshold is used, leaving 17,000 euro taxable. At 33 percent that is 5,610 euro of CAT, so the nephew keeps 54,390 euro.
The bar shows the 60,000 euro gift carved into the exempt and threshold portions that escape tax and the 17,000 euro slice that is charged at 33 percent.
The €3,000 a year that never counts
The small gift exemption is one of the most underused planning tools in Ireland. Each person can give any other person up to 3,000 euro a year completely free of CAT, and it never touches the lifetime threshold. Both parents can each give a child 3,000 euro, so 6,000 euro a year can move down a generation tax-free, and grandparents can do the same. Done consistently over many years, this quietly shifts a substantial sum out of an estate without ever triggering a return. The common mistake is leaving it all until death, when only the lifetime threshold is left to shelter the inheritance.
When does CAT actually have to be paid?
If the total taxable gifts and inheritances you have received in a group exceed 80 percent of the threshold, you must file a CAT return. For gifts taken in the year to the end of August, the return and payment are due by 31 October of that year. Take the gift after that date and you fall into the following year’s deadline, so timing a gift carefully can buy you the best part of a year before payment is due.
Is a gift toward a house deposit treated differently?
Generally no, a cash gift toward a deposit is a normal gift and uses the relevant threshold like any other. There is a separate relief where a parent allows an adult child to live rent-free in a property, and dwelling-house relief can exempt an inherited home in narrow circumstances, but a straightforward cash gift for a deposit is simply measured against the Group A threshold and the annual exemption.