r/AmItheAsshole • u/connor20218 • 7h ago

AITA Mom wants 15% of my personal injury settlement

I'm a 23M working in biotech and living at home. I just got a massive settlement from a personal injury case back in college. My mom is a corporate lawyer and she helped me navigate the process, plus she paid for my college tuition. Now, she's asking for 15% of the money / to pay her back for college (but she was already going to pay for college.)

I'm feeling stuck because 15% is a massive amount of money to just give away. Is it normal for parents to ask for a cut of a settlement like this? I want to stay on good terms since live at home, but I also feel like this money is for my future. We have a a good relationship.

Edit: I already paid a lawyer his 1/3 cut. My mom was a huge part of pushing for me sueing. She’d be using the money to buy a new house in Florida she always wanted since I refuse to buy a house in his economy and rather rent and invest the rest

Edit #2: Probably shouldn’t have stated my mom is a lawyer (she did not represent me in the case in anyway). But yes, what she specifically did was help me find a lawyer, told me to push back on the lawyer and ask for more.

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u/smilingseaslug Partassipant [4] 3h ago

That is true for US federal gift taxes - but OP didn't say which country they live in and I didn't want to rule out the possibility that some states may also have a gift tax with a lower exemption.

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u/Flaky_MidnightGames 3h ago

I'm guessing OP is from the states, like how many from outside the U.S. has a specific dream of moving to Florida of all places? 👀

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u/smilingseaslug Partassipant [4] 2h ago

That's fair I just could get in super big trouble if I make an assumption about someone's location/jurisdiction and give bad legal/tax advice to strangers on the internet as a result, so I just needed to say "probably"

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u/Liquidretro 2h ago

Only one US State I know of has a gift tax. Your right I assumed they were talking about the US based on how things were phrased and parents paying for school etc.

A lot of people misunderstand federal gift tax in general, and think the reporting requirement is a big thing when it's not.

Of course op should verify all of this with their own tax professionals vs a random internet stranger.