The last email you got from me had a couple of errors. Sorry about that. (It happens in the best of families.)  To clarify, the Federal Government will assess a gift tax on any gift made that doesn’t qualify under the annual exclusion amount (that’s $14,000 this year).  So if the gift is over the annual exclusion amount, a gift tax is technically assessed.  The gift tax is assessed against the person who gave the gift (donor), not the person who receives the gift.

The saving grace is the “unified credit” which gives each person a credit toward gift and estate taxes.  The credit “offsets” the tax assessed on gifted or death transfers for property totaling (gift or estate transfers) up to the “exemption equivalent amount” which is $5.45 million this year.  There are lots of terms and numbers to explain, so check out my new article at

Lee Phillips

P.S. The last email's article link went to Advanced Tax Tactics by accident. Sorry for any confusion.