Gifting money to my parents

Taxes
1

Hello all,

I need to send a somewhat large amount of money (~20k euros) to my parents in Italy.

Technically they just need it as an interest free loan, but I wouldn’t mind for it to stay a gift.

I’m planning to convert chf to eur with IBKR (hopefully IBKR doesn’t complain) and then send them to their Italian bank account with Yuh, which is supposed to be free with SEPA transfers.

I am wondering whether there are some tax considerations I should be keeping in mind, or if it is just a tax free gift?

Thanks everyone in advance!

2

Taxation of gifts depends on the canton the gift-giver lives in as well as the relationship between them and the recipient.

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3

Check if you have gift tax.

4

I see, I live in canton Zurich, I’ll check it. Thanks!

5

The tax is usually paid by the recipient, so what matters is likely to be what the italian situation is.

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6

I just called the canton Zurich office.
They said that I need to declare the gift on the next tax return and that up to 200.000CHF per parent is tax-free.
So you can send up to 400k total to your parents tax free in canton Zurich

2 Likes
7

same research should be done by your parents, since they are not located in switzerland

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8

Likely your parents need to declare it in the tax declaration in italy. Idk in Italy but in Spain any movement over certain amount of money in the bank account would be informed to tax autorities.
Tipically it would be part of their income tax - but not sure how it works for italy so better fo some research.

9

Maybe off topic and not sure it’s applicable or not, if your parents are dependent on you then you can also give them money as support and it’s tax deductible.

Different cantons have different limits on what’s deductible and what’s minimum needed to qualify.

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10

Looks like no tax on gift in Italy for foreign assets (make sure to not do the transfer from an Italian bank account).

Likely still has to be declared though (and do you own research :slight_smile: don’t trust random people on the internet).