For your first question, the gift tax return would have been due in the year of the gift - so the year the individual was added to an account where the interest exceeded the allowed gift for that tax year.
For the rest, it gets a little more complicated.
There are two things going on when we talk about "taxable gifts". One type triggers the filing of the gift tax return. This is gifts that exceed the annual gift tax exclusion.
Those would be gifts in excess of the annual gift tax exclusion amount in a given year ($18,000 in 2024 ) or gifts that would exceed this it, except for an election being made to "split" the gift. (Say, if I give my child $20,000 but my spouse agrees to "split" that with me, so we have to file the return to make that election.)
This gift allowance is per person receiving the gifts, with some exceptions such as payments made directly for medical bills or certain tuition. This means I can give as many gifts of $18,000 per person this year that I want, without triggering the need to file.
Anything under this amount triggers no tax and no filing requirements.
Anything over this amount triggers the requirement to file the gift tax return. The return sorts out for us if there is any tax due. For most taxpayers, there isn't. And for those where it is, they almost always have a professional sorting this sort of thing out for them (or a team of them, more likely.)
Filing the return when there area taxable gifts applies the gift to one's lifetime unified credit. This amount, under current law, is $13.6 million per individual.
So, no gift tax is due assuming that the individual hasn't already given more than this, in aggregate, when counting taxable gifts (those over the exclusion that don't meet some other exception).
The gift tax return keeps track of these taxable gifts, but no tax is due until the allotted lifetime total is exceeded. This is why many folks will say "no tax will be due" - but it does assume that the person giving the gift hasn't already give in excess of their unified credit over their lifetime.
@aadro2
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