The reason why the receiver of a gift does not report the gift for income tax purposes is that I.R.C. 102(a) says: "Gross income does not include the value of property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or inheritance." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/102
The reason why the giver of a gift has to report it is because there is a different tax on gifts given during life (gift tax) and gifts given at death (estate tax). The reason there is a gift tax is to stop people from avoiding the estate tax by giving away all of their assets just before they die. So gifts made during life are all added to one's estate to determine the taxable estate.
The $17k/$16k "annual gift exclusion amount") is there to make the system more workable -- small gifts don't need to be reported.
So the gift tax return/reporting does not mean there is any gift tax. For gift tax to be due the total of all lifetime gifts needs to be well over $12 million (scheduled to revert talk half of that in 2026). So most people don't need to worry about paying the tax. Filing the gift tax return for gives over the $17k/$16k annual amount is required even though no tax is due.
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