Normal expenditure out of income

[probate_slave]

Can someone possibly help me interpret the conditions for "normal expenditure" in the gifts-out-of-income IHT exemption?

My mother has a comfortable surplus income and would like to give more away to help family and friends. The IHT manual states that a gift "clearly made for a special purpose" automatically fails to qualify. Most of her giving would be of this type, eg for a niece's hip replacement or a grandson's house extension. However, if she made regular payments to one of my siblings to create a pool, allowing irregular gifts to be passed on as needs arise among family and others, would this meet the normality test?

[pawncob]

HMRC say:
https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts

As long as the gift is from "surplus" income and doesn't affect the standard of living, it should qualify if it's "habitual".

[probate_slave]

Thank you, pawncob - much appreciated.

I was looking at the internal manual, here and subsequent pages, where the identity of the donee and reasons for the gifts suggests possibly ruling out my idea:
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/inheritance-tax-manual/ihtm14241

[pawncob]

The "reason" for the gift is whatever you wish to call it, so habitual gifts to a sibling should be OK. Of course that means that the sibling is also making a gift............