Whether a gift is taxable, or sits under the annual exclusion and lifetime exemption.
Covers: gift tax, annual exclusion, lifetime exemption, estate tax, form 709, 709, gifting, 2503.
Open the Gift Tax Checker tool →Most gifts are never taxed. Each year you can give up to the annual exclusion to any one person with no tax and no paperwork; gifts to a US-citizen spouse are unlimited. Give more than the annual exclusion to one person and the excess isn't taxed either — it just draws down your large lifetime gift/estate exemption, and you file a Form 709 to track it. You'd only owe gift tax after the entire lifetime exemption is used up, at the 40% top rate.
We use the 2026 figures (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32): a $19,000 annual exclusion, a $194,000 exclusion for a non-citizen spouse, and a $15,000,000 lifetime exemption. This is descriptive — it tells you the tax treatment, never whether to make the gift.
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