Paying arrears for someone else- tax implications

soldmysole

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My partner owns a property on which she owes a total sum of approx €23,000 comprised of maintenance arrears and a one of payment for fire safety upgrades.
I am in a position to pay the outstanding amount but was wondering what the most efficient way to do it would be.
The property is rented and I assume the fire safety payment (10,000) could be written off against her rental income for tax purposes.
The annual maintenance charges have already been offset against the rental income.
If I give her the money is she then liable for a gift tax and if so would it outweigh the benefit of the tax write off?
Am I better to pay it on her behalf meaning she can't write the fire safety payment but doesn't have to pay any gift tax?
I would really appreciate any advice.
Andrew
 
The Fire Safety payment may be classed as a capital expenditure ?

What do you mean by "partner"?

Transfers between spouses and civil partners are not taxable. Transfers to others are taxable - you could try classing it as a loan - could she arrange to repay it over a longer term?

Could she arrange staged payments of 3,000 per year and then you could gift it?
 
Hi thanks for replying,

I think she is classed as my common law wife, not spouse. Hence I assumed there would be some tax liability.

The fire safety work has been enforced on the owners of the apartments in question, I don't know how this classed tax wise. I may contact the management company to find out their take on it.

The balance owed has been outstanding for a long time and the property management company want it paid asap, so paying in stages isn't an option.
How would I go about arranging it as a loan between us? Would we need to enter into a contract or just complete the relevant section in our tax returns?
 
You can giver her a loan and as long as she shows some payments back to you then there is no problem. You can gift her 3k per year and she can pay that back as part of the loan also. Just show a paper trail for repayments. Tha taxman may never question where she got the 23k from but it's best to have some paperwork just in case.
 
Thanks very much for your replies it gives me a good starting point, I'll have to do a bit reading up on the finer details.
 
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