Gift tax for Canadian resident

I am getting married in Ireland this summer and my uncle has kindly offered to provide €10k to help with the costs. I am originally from Ireland but currently live and work in Canada. I also hold passports for both countries if that makes any difference.

I have an old Credit Union account in Ireland which I was planning to receive the transfer to - as opposed to having it sent to my Canadian account and losing money via FX fees. I'm wondering what my tax implications are an Irish citizen, but non-tax resident? There is no gift tax in Canada so wondering if it may be more advantageous to receive the money to my Canadian account and chin the FX fees to save on Irish gift tax. TIA.

Where's your uncle and his money?

Your citizenship is irrelevant. So is the location of the bank account into which the gift is received.

Torblednam's question is to the point. In principle, if you receive a gift from an Irish resident, or a gift of Irish property, that's potentially within the charge to CAT, no matter where you are resident.

However, the gift is from your uncle. An uncle is within group B, and you have a lifetime allowance of €40,000 for aggregate gifts and inheritances from people in group B that you can receive free of inheritance tax. The other members of group B are your other uncles and aunts, your brothers and sisters, your grandparents. Unless you have a very generous extended family and have already received more than €30,000 from these people, you won't have any liablity on a gift of €10,000 from your uncle.

And as the €10,000 gift is to cover wedding costs, that's half to you, half to your future spouse, and a €3,000 small gift exemption to each of you. No-one is going to get too exercised about gift tax on the remainder.

And, if your uncle should happen to be married, he could make €2,500 gifts to each of you and your reason for living, and his wife could do the same. Four gifts, all under the €3k small gifts exemption.

One way or another, you don't have a CAT problem here. Would that all questions that arise in the organisation of weddings had such a straightforward and satisfactory answer.

T McGibney said:

And as the €10,000 gift is to cover wedding costs, that's half to you, half to your future spouse, and a €3,000 small gift exemption to each of you. No-one is going to get too exercised about gift tax on the remainder.

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People seem over cautious on gifts of relatively small amounts of money. The Revenue aren't chasing down people who got a gift of €10,000 for a wedding, with most of it being used as annual gift exemption. It's the systematic transfer of wealth from one generation to the next that they are looking for.

Thanks all!