Life Time Gift Tax Exemption

[bondi688]

Did anyone take advantage or has made move to take advantage of the generous life time gift tax exemption before it expires in 10 days and the amount exempted drastically reduced ?

Is gifting now not a good way to minimize the impact of highly appreciable assets like stock holding on the estate in the future?

 

[Gill]

Yes and Yes to both your questions. Assuming you are in a position to make irrevocable transfers in the millions of dollars it certainly will probably make sense, although there is no certainty about future legislation.
Bruce

 

[bondi688]

From what I have read and gathered from talking to estate planning people, the Estate Tax exemption is likely going to end up at somewhere between 3.5 millions dollars, what Obama wants, and 5 millions, what the GOP and some democrats want, depends on who has the power, and at this point, it looks like Obama has the upper hand.

But the lifetime gift tax exemption (apart from the $14000 a year to each person that you can give without having to file an income tax return on), which is viewed as a way to evade future asset appreciation, is likely going to be separated out and limited to one million dollars.