Most people with accumulated wealth have a plan for what happens to it when they die. Few have a plan for what happens to it while they’re alive.

A couple spends decades building a portfolio, lives carefully, invests wisely, and holds that wealth in place while their adult children grind through the most expensive years of their lives. Childcare, HECS debt, school fees and saving for a house deposit in a market that can feel impossible to enter. The early years of raising a family on two incomes that don’t stretch the way they used to.

The wealth is there. The need is there. They just rarely meet at the right time.

If you’re in reasonable health in your mid-sixties, you’ll likely live into your late eighties. Your children could be in their mid-fifties or sixties before they inherit, within a decade or less of their own retirement. At that point, the money is a late career windfall. Twenty years earlier, it would have been transformational.

So what actually stops people?

Mostly inertia, and a vague sense that it must be complicated. In practice, Australia has no gift tax. Cash gifts to family members carry no tax obligation for the recipient. The mechanics are simpler than people assume.

One caveat: gifting assets like shares or property is different. The ATO treats that as a disposal at market value, which can trigger capital gains tax for the giver. Cash doesn’t have this problem. It’s an important distinction if you’re thinking about transferring investments rather than money in the bank.

What changes when money moves earlier?

A deposit that felt out of reach becomes achievable. Childcare costs that were quietly straining a household budget ease up. School fees stop being a source of stress every term. A small business idea that needed seed capital gets a real chance.

The best part, you get to be there for it. You get to see your daughter walk through the front door of a house she didn’t think she could afford. You get to watch the stress lift from your son’s face when school fees aren’t keeping him up at night anymore. An inheritance is a line in a will. Giving while you’re alive is a shared experience, and for most people who do it, it becomes one of the most rewarding things they’ve done with their money. The passing on the wealth you spent a lifetime building actually gets to mean something to you, not just to the people who eventually receive it.

It’s not right for every family

Early giving isn’t always straightforward. In some families the dynamics are complicated. Unequal needs between children, relationships under strain, or circumstances where a significant transfer could create tension rather than relieve it. These are real considerations, not reasons to avoid the conversation entirely, but reasons to have it carefully.

There’s also a legal risk that catches people off guard. If your child uses a gifted deposit to buy a home with a partner, and that relationship later breaks down, the gift can be treated as shared property in family court, regardless of your original intent. Your money, intended for your child, partially benefits someone you never meant to help. It’s not a rare scenario. There are strategies that you can implement that will mean that the transferred asset is not assessed as a gift. You would need to seek legal advice from a Solicitor to discuss these options and to set the structure up.

Centrelink and aged care considerations

If you’re receiving or approaching the Age Pension, there are gifting thresholds to be aware of. An individual or couple can gift up to $10,000 per year without affecting benefit eligibility, capped at $30,000 per individual or couple over any rolling five-year period. Amounts above those thresholds can be treated as deprived assets and counted in the means test for up to five years. Aged care assessments apply a similar lens to gifts made in the years before entry.

None of this is a reason not to give. But for retirees relying on the pension or planning ahead for aged care, getting advice before acting is the difference between a well-structured transfer and an unintended consequence.

We can help

Whether this is something you’ve been thinking about for a while or an idea that hadn’t crossed your mind until now, it’s a conversation we have with clients regularly. Everyone’s situation is different, but the right time to start planning is usually earlier than people expect. At Tribel, we help families work through these decisions every day, from the financial modelling to the Centrelink implications to making sure the transfer is set up properly. If you’d like to talk it through, we can help.