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gift tax

Q&A: How to avoid triggering gift taxes

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Dear Liz: Is it possible to make student loan payments directly toward our son’s lender without them being considered a gift and thereby subject to the gift tax after a certain amount?

Answer: No. But gift taxes aren’t an issue for the vast majority of Americans. You and your spouse would have to give away more than $10 million for gift taxes to be triggered.

You don’t even have to file a gift tax return if the amounts you give are under certain annual limits. The annual gift exclusion in 2017 allows you to give away $14,000 per recipient without having to file a gift tax return, so the two of you could pay $28,000 of your child’s loans without informing the IRS.

Only the amounts above $14,000 count toward the gift tax, and gift tax is owed only when those excess gifts total more than a certain amount, which in 2017 was $5.49 million.

When gift taxes are an issue, there are some workarounds. In addition to the annual gift tax exclusion amounts, people can pay an unlimited amount of someone else’s medical expenses or tuition without triggering gift taxes — as long as the payments are made directly to providers. In other words, the tuition checks need to be made out to the college bursar, not to the child or to another creditor. Paying student loans isn’t included in that unlimited exemption.

Q&A: Gift tax returns

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Dear Liz: You recently answered a question about gift taxes and mentioned gift tax returns. Who is supposed to report the gift, the one giving or the one receiving the money? It seems like the one receiving the gift should, but in the answer it seemed the one giving the gift was subject to taxes.

Answer: The giver would file the return. The gift tax rules require people to report any annual gift over $14,000 to any one person, although the givers don’t owe gift taxes until those aggregate amounts exceed a certain limit (currently $5.45 million). The gift tax rules are designed to keep wealthy people from circumventing estate tax laws by giving vast amounts to their heirs before they die.

Q&A: Tuition gifts and tax breaks

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Dear Liz: You recently answered questions about tax breaks for college education expenses. We are contributing $20,000 to our grandson’s college education yearly. He is not our dependent. We are senior citizens with a gross income of about $110,000. Is there any deduction for this expenditure that we might qualify for?

Answer: Your grandson is a lucky young man. Since he’s not your dependent, though, you can’t take any of the available education tax credits or deductions.
The good news is that you don’t have to worry about filing gift tax returns. Each person is allowed to give any other person up to a certain limit each year without triggering the need to file such returns.

This amount, called the annual gift exclusion, is $14,000 this year. Together, you and your spouse could gift up to $30,000 to one person. You wouldn’t actually owe gift taxes until the amounts exceeding this annual exclusion totaled $10.86 million as a couple.

Even if you were giving more than $30,000, there would be a way to avoid filing gift tax returns, and that’s to pay the college directly. Amounts you pay directly to a college or to medical provider are exempt from the limits.

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

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life isurance blank bar chart and glasesToday’s top story: Life insurance mistakes you must avoid. Also in the news: The gift tax, how to get better financial advice, and seven credit card strategies that can improve your credit.

Five Life Insurance Mistakes That Can Haunt You
These mistakes can be costly for both you and your loved ones.

Remember, Some Gifts Are Taxed
The gifts that keep on giving (and taking).

A Simple Tool for Getting Better Financial Advice
It’s about more than just your money.

7 Credit Card Strategies to Help Your Credit
Using your cards to give your credit a boost.

4 Great Ideas from Hanging Around with Financial Bloggers
Tips from those in the know.

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailToday’s top story: How to manage your credit cards while being unemployed. Also in the news: Surviving the Heartbleed computer bug, what you need to know about gift taxes, and separating car insurance facts from fiction.

6 Credit Card Tips for the Unemployed
How to carefully manage your credit while unemployed.

What you need to know about the Heartbleed bug
Your personal and financial data may be at risk.

Gift Tax Returns: What You Need To Know
What givers and receivers need to know.

8 Car Insurance Myths You Should Send to the Junkyard
Separating fact from fiction.

It May Not Be Too Late to Reduce Your 2013 Taxes
Less than a week to go.

Triggering the Gift Tax

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Dear Liz: In 2007, my parents signed over their house deed to my name. Does this trigger the gift tax? They never filled out a gift tax form. Is it too late? Dad has passed on but Mom is still with us. She has Alzheimer’s disease, and I have her power of attorney. Are there no taxes due because of the lifetime exclusion?

Answer: Yes, a gift tax return should have been filed, but no, the gift tax itself almost certainly wasn’t triggered. In 2007, each of your parents would have had to give away more than $1 million in their lifetimes before gift tax would be owed. The gift tax exemption limit has since been raised to more than $5 million.

A tax professional can help you file the overdue return. Then you should consult an attorney about what to do next.

If your parents’ intent was to avoid taxes by transferring the home to you, they probably made a mistake. By giving the house to you, they also gave their tax basis. That means that when you sell the house, you would have to pay capital gains taxes on the difference between the sale price and what they paid for it, perhaps many years ago. The capital gains would be decreased by any improvements made in the subsequent years and by selling costs, but you still could face a substantial tax bill.

If you’d inherited the home after their deaths, on the other hand, you would get a new tax basis that essentially makes those gains tax-free.
You could undo the gift by transferring the deed back to your mother and filing another gift tax return. (Again, no tax probably would be owed.) But that’s probably not something you’d want to do if your mother will qualify for Medicaid, the government program that pays nursing home expenses for the poor, said Howard Krooks, an attorney with Elder Law Associates in Boca Raton, Fla., and president of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.

Medicaid looks back at the previous five years to see if the family transferred assets for less than fair-market value and delays eligibility if such transfers are found. Since you’re outside the five-year mark, you may want to leave things the way they are if Medicaid is in your mom’s future, Krooks said.

An elder law attorney can help you sort through the options. You can get referrals from the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys at http://www.naela.org.