The amount of people living subsidized by their parents is astounding

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm over 50 and have never met anyone like this. What kind of loser would accept money from parents/family? It's not that hard to just get a job and pay your bills in the US, assuming you didn't have kids before finishing college.

Millennials do all the time and see nothing wrong with it.

DP millennials are 35-40 years old. If they are living off the parents dole, then they are losers.

I am a millennial and made 1.1M last year. My parent's give me $36k a year because they are wealthy. $10k went to charity and the rest was saved for my daughter's college. I guess I am a loser.

Same here, I am a younger millennial (31), make decent money (nowhere near as you though, only 200k, but wife makes almost the same as well) but until very recently, my parents were still giving me between 24k and 30k a year. I am an immigrant (parents still abroad) and this was just their way of helping and making sure we are fine (and they don't take no for an answer). Wife is also an immigrant, and her parents send her money to this day still (but lower amount, like 10k a year). Lol don't think we are losers either, we worked hard to get to the incomes we currently have. Any money they gave just got moved to emergency fund/stock market.

This is just the way parents of immigrants work/think, they like to make sure that their children are fine and taken care of. And whenever I end up having children, I hope that I will be in a place (financially) to be able to do the same (when the time comes).

Wealth like that passed on to the next generation has prolonged childhood into adulthood. This is one of the reasons our country is failing. If you and your spouse (or significant other) are not paying for a roof over your head, the food on your table, your car insurance, your phone bill, for yourself and your 18 and under children (I'll even give you up through undergrad), then you are a child. Generational wealth begets generational infantilism.

PP -- if you have the money that you claim you have and accept money like that from your parents, that is pitiful. Seems everyone wants to be a hereditary oligarch these days. Do better. Tell your parents to do more for the charities they may already support or find new ones.

We have a family foundation that donates 6 figures a year on top of the gifts they give us. I truly don't understand why you care.

This is such gaslighting. The pie isn’t actually infinite, and you know that. If you showed up to compete in your championship tennis match and the scoreboard showed that your opponent had already been credited with two sets, would you care?

Well in life, there will ALWAYS be someone who has it "better than you". So while you won't see them "credited with two sets" you might see that they grew up rich and playing tennis from age 5+ with private lessons with the best instructors, and ability to practice hours a day because they had an indoor court at the house and didn't have to work a part time job to earn money for life. Versus the tennis star whose parents struggled to help them due to being Middle class. See, that is how life works. Someone will always have advantages.

More gaslighting. Your scenario is a rich kid getting a good education. But that kid still has to compete with the middle class kid. Trust fund babies and adult children receiving untaxed income for s more like what I described- basically just being handed a victory.

I’ll bet you are vehemently opposed to government “handouts”.

Actually I'm not opposed to government handouts. Never voted for a R president in my lifetime.
However, I'd prefer we couple the handouts with programs that actually work towards improving the person/family life and ultimately getting them off the programs. So I would rather spend more now to prevent future issues. So spend on afterschool programs and ensure our kids are well educated and well fed, all while they have a safe place to live. Help the parent(s) get more education/training so they have a better future. Because I smartly realize that spending more to help prevent future poverty (or continued poverty) is well worth it for society

So what are your ideas to get the rich kids off their handout programs?

They are not on Handout programs.

You seem overly jealous of the fact there are people out there who have money. But seem to forget the fact that those are the ones actually paying max taxes---at least for us, it's all W2 or Cap Gains. Nothing to hide---all reported to govt and you simply have to pay the max. Yet you feel the need to take more from them. At some point, you need to learn to support yourself and better yourself if you want more out of life

Stop gaslighting. Your adult kids receive free money and pay ZERO taxes. Your adult kids aren’t supporting themselves when they’re being paid tax free (aka government handouts) money by mommy and daddy. When your adult children pay taxes nobody is taking anything from YOU. Are you unaware that your adult children are completely different people?

NP. Receiving gift money doesn’t mean the adult kids can’t/don’t support themselves, or don’t pay taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a big extended family with generational wealth. I benefit from it, and I will pass it on.

I gotta say, this idea of subsidizing doesn’t bother me. If my kids are happy and healthy and fulfilled, I don’t really care if they use trust money or a salary or some combo to pay their bills. There’s no prize when you die for a pile of W2s. The very few people in my extended family who really made piles of money were all entrepreneurs anyway. Boom and bust types.

It would be kind of crazy to me to have a bunch of assets and not change your life at all.

Agree with all of this, but as was said in a previous comment, I just want the rich kids to pay TAXES on this unearned income. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

NP. Why just rich kids? If you want to tax gift money, you’re talking about some poor kid’s $50 graduation gift too.

Not necessarily -- even W9 income has a limit from any individual payer before it gets reported to the government, and that limit is higher than $50.

I've been the beneficiary of some very generous gifts from my late grandparents and my parents over the years. It was obviously better for me that I didn't have to pay taxes on that, but it was also obviously unfair. I wouldn't argue at all if someone wanted to change the law (though I think we all know that law will never be changed). I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise unless they just don't want to think for even a half a second about the moral implications of being given money just because of who your parents happened to be.

THANK YOU. It makes my day to see an actual sane person capable of self reflection posting here.

I'm all for it too, I just think it should be in the form of higher capital gains taxes, because if you have capital gains you also have the liquidity to pay the taxes. That makes more sense than making death an event with a much higher tax rate. I mean 15% for long term capital gains and 50% for estates is nuts to me. I think the big exemption is just because it's not a very practical tax and people would rebel if everyone had to pay it. Few people could pass down houses, etc. If you die during a stock market dip, you're screwed. Etc. But yeah, a side effect of that is all this extra income to adult children without additional taxes, which definitely adds to the sting if you're watching it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a big extended family with generational wealth. I benefit from it, and I will pass it on.

I gotta say, this idea of subsidizing doesn’t bother me. If my kids are happy and healthy and fulfilled, I don’t really care if they use trust money or a salary or some combo to pay their bills. There’s no prize when you die for a pile of W2s. The very few people in my extended family who really made piles of money were all entrepreneurs anyway. Boom and bust types.

It would be kind of crazy to me to have a bunch of assets and not change your life at all.

Agree with all of this, but as was said in a previous comment, I just want the rich kids to pay TAXES on this unearned income. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

NP. Why just rich kids? If you want to tax gift money, you’re talking about some poor kid’s $50 graduation gift too.

Not necessarily -- even W9 income has a limit from any individual payer before it gets reported to the government, and that limit is higher than $50.

I've been the beneficiary of some very generous gifts from my late grandparents and my parents over the years. It was obviously better for me that I didn't have to pay taxes on that, but it was also obviously unfair. I wouldn't argue at all if someone wanted to change the law (though I think we all know that law will never be changed). I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise unless they just don't want to think for even a half a second about the moral implications of being given money just because of who your parents happened to be.

I am in the same boat but also feel strongly that money which has already been taxed, sometimes twice (Income and cap gains) should not be taxed a third time via a gift to my offspring. If there is any loophole to close it's the step up in cost basis upon death - exclude businesses and farms.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm over 50 and have never met anyone like this. What kind of loser would accept money from parents/family? It's not that hard to just get a job and pay your bills in the US, assuming you didn't have kids before finishing college.

Millennials do all the time and see nothing wrong with it.

DP millennials are 35-40 years old. If they are living off the parents dole, then they are losers.

I am a millennial and made 1.1M last year. My parent's give me $36k a year because they are wealthy. $10k went to charity and the rest was saved for my daughter's college. I guess I am a loser.

Same here, I am a younger millennial (31), make decent money (nowhere near as you though, only 200k, but wife makes almost the same as well) but until very recently, my parents were still giving me between 24k and 30k a year. I am an immigrant (parents still abroad) and this was just their way of helping and making sure we are fine (and they don't take no for an answer). Wife is also an immigrant, and her parents send her money to this day still (but lower amount, like 10k a year). Lol don't think we are losers either, we worked hard to get to the incomes we currently have. Any money they gave just got moved to emergency fund/stock market.

This is just the way parents of immigrants work/think, they like to make sure that their children are fine and taken care of. And whenever I end up having children, I hope that I will be in a place (financially) to be able to do the same (when the time comes).

Wealth like that passed on to the next generation has prolonged childhood into adulthood. This is one of the reasons our country is failing. If you and your spouse (or significant other) are not paying for a roof over your head, the food on your table, your car insurance, your phone bill, for yourself and your 18 and under children (I'll even give you up through undergrad), then you are a child. Generational wealth begets generational infantilism.

PP -- if you have the money that you claim you have and accept money like that from your parents, that is pitiful. Seems everyone wants to be a hereditary oligarch these days. Do better. Tell your parents to do more for the charities they may already support or find new ones.

We have a family foundation that donates 6 figures a year on top of the gifts they give us. I truly don't understand why you care.

This is such gaslighting. The pie isn’t actually infinite, and you know that. If you showed up to compete in your championship tennis match and the scoreboard showed that your opponent had already been credited with two sets, would you care?

Well in life, there will ALWAYS be someone who has it "better than you". So while you won't see them "credited with two sets" you might see that they grew up rich and playing tennis from age 5+ with private lessons with the best instructors, and ability to practice hours a day because they had an indoor court at the house and didn't have to work a part time job to earn money for life. Versus the tennis star whose parents struggled to help them due to being Middle class. See, that is how life works. Someone will always have advantages.

More gaslighting. Your scenario is a rich kid getting a good education. But that kid still has to compete with the middle class kid. Trust fund babies and adult children receiving untaxed income for s more like what I described- basically just being handed a victory.

I’ll bet you are vehemently opposed to government “handouts”.

Actually I'm not opposed to government handouts. Never voted for a R president in my lifetime.
However, I'd prefer we couple the handouts with programs that actually work towards improving the person/family life and ultimately getting them off the programs. So I would rather spend more now to prevent future issues. So spend on afterschool programs and ensure our kids are well educated and well fed, all while they have a safe place to live. Help the parent(s) get more education/training so they have a better future. Because I smartly realize that spending more to help prevent future poverty (or continued poverty) is well worth it for society

So what are your ideas to get the rich kids off their handout programs?

They are not on Handout programs.

You seem overly jealous of the fact there are people out there who have money. But seem to forget the fact that those are the ones actually paying max taxes---at least for us, it's all W2 or Cap Gains. Nothing to hide---all reported to govt and you simply have to pay the max. Yet you feel the need to take more from them. At some point, you need to learn to support yourself and better yourself if you want more out of life

Stop gaslighting. Your adult kids receive free money and pay ZERO taxes. Your adult kids aren’t supporting themselves when they’re being paid tax free (aka government handouts) money by mommy and daddy. When your adult children pay taxes nobody is taking anything from YOU. Are you unaware that your adult children are completely different people?

NP. Receiving gift money doesn’t mean the adult kids can’t/don’t support themselves, or don’t pay taxes.

They’re not paying taxes on part of their income (the gift money) which they are in fact using to support themselves, in whole or in part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a big extended family with generational wealth. I benefit from it, and I will pass it on.

I gotta say, this idea of subsidizing doesn’t bother me. If my kids are happy and healthy and fulfilled, I don’t really care if they use trust money or a salary or some combo to pay their bills. There’s no prize when you die for a pile of W2s. The very few people in my extended family who really made piles of money were all entrepreneurs anyway. Boom and bust types.

It would be kind of crazy to me to have a bunch of assets and not change your life at all.

Agree with all of this, but as was said in a previous comment, I just want the rich kids to pay TAXES on this unearned income. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

NP. Why just rich kids? If you want to tax gift money, you’re talking about some poor kid’s $50 graduation gift too.

Not necessarily -- even W9 income has a limit from any individual payer before it gets reported to the government, and that limit is higher than $50.

I've been the beneficiary of some very generous gifts from my late grandparents and my parents over the years. It was obviously better for me that I didn't have to pay taxes on that, but it was also obviously unfair. I wouldn't argue at all if someone wanted to change the law (though I think we all know that law will never be changed). I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise unless they just don't want to think for even a half a second about the moral implications of being given money just because of who your parents happened to be.

I am in the same boat but also feel strongly that money which has already been taxed, sometimes twice (Income and cap gains) should not be taxed a third time via a gift to my offspring. If there is any loophole to close it's the step up in cost basis upon death - exclude businesses and farms.

I feel the money that you already paid taxes on, sometimes twice (income and cap gains) should not be taxed a third time when you give it to me to: clean your house, or cut your hair, or serve your food, or write your will, or perform your colonoscopy, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a very normal and human thing to use your resources to take care of your own offspring

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a big extended family with generational wealth. I benefit from it, and I will pass it on.

I gotta say, this idea of subsidizing doesn’t bother me. If my kids are happy and healthy and fulfilled, I don’t really care if they use trust money or a salary or some combo to pay their bills. There’s no prize when you die for a pile of W2s. The very few people in my extended family who really made piles of money were all entrepreneurs anyway. Boom and bust types.

It would be kind of crazy to me to have a bunch of assets and not change your life at all.

Agree with all of this, but as was said in a previous comment, I just want the rich kids to pay TAXES on this unearned income. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

NP. Why just rich kids? If you want to tax gift money, you’re talking about some poor kid’s $50 graduation gift too.

Not necessarily -- even W9 income has a limit from any individual payer before it gets reported to the government, and that limit is higher than $50.

I've been the beneficiary of some very generous gifts from my late grandparents and my parents over the years. It was obviously better for me that I didn't have to pay taxes on that, but it was also obviously unfair. I wouldn't argue at all if someone wanted to change the law (though I think we all know that law will never be changed). I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise unless they just don't want to think for even a half a second about the moral implications of being given money just because of who your parents happened to be.

THANK YOU. It makes my day to see an actual sane person capable of self reflection posting here.

I'm all for it too, I just think it should be in the form of higher capital gains taxes, because if you have capital gains you also have the liquidity to pay the taxes. That makes more sense than making death an event with a much higher tax rate. I mean 15% for long term capital gains and 50% for estates is nuts to me. I think the big exemption is just because it's not a very practical tax and people would rebel if everyone had to pay it. Few people could pass down houses, etc. If you die during a stock market dip, you're screwed. Etc. But yeah, a side effect of that is all this extra income to adult children without additional taxes, which definitely adds to the sting if you're watching it happen.

If you die during a stock market dip, you’re not screwed - you’re dead. Same as if you died at any other time.

Income is income. All forms of income should be treated (and taxed) equally.

[Anonymous]

This is my sister and her family: she and her husband started investing well in real estate starting in the 1980s in a very high COL area. Fast forward to present day - all of her residential properties are now occupied by her children and their children. They work in their careers, but they don't pay rent or mortgages. She gets to live near them, because otherwise they would have had to leave that area long ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a very normal and human thing to use your resources to take care of your own offspring

Not adults! The “normal” human behavior is for adults to take care of their aging parents. I know 40-something’s who get allowances from their 70 year old parents. 😝

Most of these people are stunted professionally because they relied financially on their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a big extended family with generational wealth. I benefit from it, and I will pass it on.

I gotta say, this idea of subsidizing doesn’t bother me. If my kids are happy and healthy and fulfilled, I don’t really care if they use trust money or a salary or some combo to pay their bills. There’s no prize when you die for a pile of W2s. The very few people in my extended family who really made piles of money were all entrepreneurs anyway. Boom and bust types.

It would be kind of crazy to me to have a bunch of assets and not change your life at all.

Agree with all of this, but as was said in a previous comment, I just want the rich kids to pay TAXES on this unearned income. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Their family/parents paid taxes on the income already. If they are under 18 and/or a college student, you can simply pay their expenses. It's also easy to pay their expenses when older and not get caught. You just use a family CC that you pay for.

Or you simply gift the $19K/year per person

Yes, their parents paid taxes when it was their income. Now the kids can pay taxes when it becomes their income. That’s how income taxes work (or should work, anyway).

I mean, my employer already paid taxes on their own income, so why should I have to pay taxes when they give some of it to me in exchange for some form of labor?

Yes, if you are gifting it to non-family, make it income. But a parent helping their 25 yo kid out should not count as "income" IMO. That's where I have issues.

But WHY? What is the actual difference, when looked at from the perspective of the adult child with rich parents vs the adult child with poor parents?

Because family takes care of family. Just because my kids hit some magical age does not mean that we still don't want to help them out. They still have jobs, meaningful careers they love and live within their means. I mean the poor kid probably didn't have parental help with college---are you proposing we tax kids on the money their parents use to pay for their college? No, it's just called helping your kids with what you have. Yes, some will have more, some less. But you can go from poor to rich, get an education and focus your efforts on improving you. I grew up LMC, worked my ass off to do well in school and get into good schools and also do well in college so I could get a job and pay off my student loans. In 1999 I was 6 years out of graduate school, had paid off all of our loans (almost $80K), bought a first home and well on our way to saving for retirement. I was making 6 figures with my bonus (in 1999 that was an excellent salary). None of that was luck. It was just excelling at school an at our jobs. I knew the path out of low income lifestyle was education and that nothing would be handed to me, so I had to work for it all. That meant not partying as much in college as many kids, it meant working FT on any break to have enough money to attend college. It meant spending hours searching for internships and jobs (in early days of internet---it took a lot more work/planning).

Nothing was handed to me or my spouse. We simply worked hard and were always looking for ways to better ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lifetime estate and gift tax exemption increased to $13.99 million per individual for 2025. In most situations (esp with married couples giving), people don't need to worry about giving $50,000 this year versus the exclusionary max of $38,000/year (in the couple scenario). A lot of people wrongly think they can only give $19,000 each per year (above that just needs to be reported). There are also things that don't "count" toward the $19,000, like direct payments to medical providers direct tuition payments.

Or even better, simply have a "family Credit card". For us it's the one we got for each kid when they turned 16 and started driving. All 3 kids have one, along with me---it's my account with them as secondary. Once kids are out of college, they put purchases on that card that we are paying for (plane tickets home or vacations with us or trips to the grandparents). And yes, education and medical can both be paid directly without being considered a gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm over 50 and have never met anyone like this. What kind of loser would accept money from parents/family? It's not that hard to just get a job and pay your bills in the US, assuming you didn't have kids before finishing college.

Millennials do all the time and see nothing wrong with it.

DP millennials are 35-40 years old. If they are living off the parents dole, then they are losers.

I am a millennial and made 1.1M last year. My parent's give me $36k a year because they are wealthy. $10k went to charity and the rest was saved for my daughter's college. I guess I am a loser.

Same here, I am a younger millennial (31), make decent money (nowhere near as you though, only 200k, but wife makes almost the same as well) but until very recently, my parents were still giving me between 24k and 30k a year. I am an immigrant (parents still abroad) and this was just their way of helping and making sure we are fine (and they don't take no for an answer). Wife is also an immigrant, and her parents send her money to this day still (but lower amount, like 10k a year). Lol don't think we are losers either, we worked hard to get to the incomes we currently have. Any money they gave just got moved to emergency fund/stock market.

This is just the way parents of immigrants work/think, they like to make sure that their children are fine and taken care of. And whenever I end up having children, I hope that I will be in a place (financially) to be able to do the same (when the time comes).

Wealth like that passed on to the next generation has prolonged childhood into adulthood. This is one of the reasons our country is failing. If you and your spouse (or significant other) are not paying for a roof over your head, the food on your table, your car insurance, your phone bill, for yourself and your 18 and under children (I'll even give you up through undergrad), then you are a child. Generational wealth begets generational infantilism.

PP -- if you have the money that you claim you have and accept money like that from your parents, that is pitiful. Seems everyone wants to be a hereditary oligarch these days. Do better. Tell your parents to do more for the charities they may already support or find new ones.

We have a family foundation that donates 6 figures a year on top of the gifts they give us. I truly don't understand why you care.

This is such gaslighting. The pie isn’t actually infinite, and you know that. If you showed up to compete in your championship tennis match and the scoreboard showed that your opponent had already been credited with two sets, would you care?

Well in life, there will ALWAYS be someone who has it "better than you". So while you won't see them "credited with two sets" you might see that they grew up rich and playing tennis from age 5+ with private lessons with the best instructors, and ability to practice hours a day because they had an indoor court at the house and didn't have to work a part time job to earn money for life. Versus the tennis star whose parents struggled to help them due to being Middle class. See, that is how life works. Someone will always have advantages.

More gaslighting. Your scenario is a rich kid getting a good education. But that kid still has to compete with the middle class kid. Trust fund babies and adult children receiving untaxed income for s more like what I described- basically just being handed a victory.

I’ll bet you are vehemently opposed to government “handouts”.

Actually I'm not opposed to government handouts. Never voted for a R president in my lifetime.
However, I'd prefer we couple the handouts with programs that actually work towards improving the person/family life and ultimately getting them off the programs. So I would rather spend more now to prevent future issues. So spend on afterschool programs and ensure our kids are well educated and well fed, all while they have a safe place to live. Help the parent(s) get more education/training so they have a better future. Because I smartly realize that spending more to help prevent future poverty (or continued poverty) is well worth it for society

So what are your ideas to get the rich kids off their handout programs?

They are not on Handout programs.

You seem overly jealous of the fact there are people out there who have money. But seem to forget the fact that those are the ones actually paying max taxes---at least for us, it's all W2 or Cap Gains. Nothing to hide---all reported to govt and you simply have to pay the max. Yet you feel the need to take more from them. At some point, you need to learn to support yourself and better yourself if you want more out of life

Stop gaslighting. Your adult kids receive free money and pay ZERO taxes. Your adult kids aren’t supporting themselves when they’re being paid tax free (aka government handouts) money by mommy and daddy. When your adult children pay taxes nobody is taking anything from YOU. Are you unaware that your adult children are completely different people?

NP. Receiving gift money doesn’t mean the adult kids can’t/don’t support themselves, or don’t pay taxes.

Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is my sister and her family: she and her husband started investing well in real estate starting in the 1980s in a very high COL area. Fast forward to present day - all of her residential properties are now occupied by her children and their children. They work in their careers, but they don't pay rent or mortgages. She gets to live near them, because otherwise they would have had to leave that area long ago.

So…a family-owned property is inhabited by family members? How terrible.

[Anonymous]

I happen to know who in my circle is supported financially by their parents. They are not shy about sharing this information. But once they share it, I am now aware that everything they do is only possible because of their parent’s hard work & business acumen — not their own.

It does change my perception of them, I can’t lie. It’s an American thing. We value self made people. Whether you like it or not, those people will always be respected more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lifetime estate and gift tax exemption increased to $13.99 million per individual for 2025. In most situations (esp with married couples giving), people don't need to worry about giving $50,000 this year versus the exclusionary max of $38,000/year (in the couple scenario). A lot of people wrongly think they can only give $19,000 each per year (above that just needs to be reported). There are also things that don't "count" toward the $19,000, like direct payments to medical providers direct tuition payments.

Or even better, simply have a "family Credit card". For us it's the one we got for each kid when they turned 16 and started driving. All 3 kids have one, along with me---it's my account with them as secondary. Once kids are out of college, they put purchases on that card that we are paying for (plane tickets home or vacations with us or trips to the grandparents). And yes, education and medical can both be paid directly without being considered a gift.

Do they have limits on it?!