Two Ways to Help Your Parents

Many older individuals live on a fixed income of Social Security.  That can make paying for major expenses such as a car, a new roof, or perhaps an uncovered medical bill extremely difficult and stressful.  Often times, when a child has the ability to help out financially, they do.  Here are two basic ways to help without creating a tax burden on yourself.

Every individual can gift up to $14,000 to anyone he or she chooses in any given year.  Married couples can double that amount.  That means that a married child could give his mom and dad up to $56,000 per year without incurring any tax on any person ($14,000 x 2 = $28,000 x 2 = $56,000).  These gifts can be extremely helpful for the unexpected emergency that always seems to pop up.

A second way to address these costs is similar in design.  Simply pay some of your parents bills directly.  One way to do this most effectively is to pay medical bills directly to the provider.  You will be able to pay the bill and still make the gifts set out above with no tax consequence to anyone.

So if your mom and dad need some assistance, these are two effective ways for children to help.

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