topic My parents are trying to gift my wife, children and I money. To stay within the 14k gift exclusion do they need to write checks to each of us vs one large check? in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

My parents are trying to gift my wife, children and I money. To stay within the 14k gift exclusion do they need to write checks to each of us vs one large check?

golomb-andrew — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:25:37 GMT

Your parents can write a check of $14,000 for each of you...

DanO — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:25:39 GMT

Your parents can write a check of $14,000 for each of you and not have to bother with filing Form 709 for the gift tax. Actually, each parent could give a $14,000 gift to each of you and not need to file.

Even if they want to write one large check in excess of $14,000 they wouldn't need to actually pay any taxes unless they exceeded the $5.49 million federal estate exemption along the way. Filing the 709 gift tax form is a way of keeping track of the reduction in the estate tax exemption.

They want to avoid filling out the 709 since it has to be...

golomb-andrew — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:25:40 GMT

They want to avoid filling out the 709 since it has to be done manually. So if they wrote one large check to me and I divided up between everyone, they'd still need to fill out the 709?

If the check was for more than $14,000 then they would ne...

DanO — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:25:41 GMT

If the check was for more than $14,000 then they would need to file the 709 since the check was written to one recipient.