Does a gift from an trust (I'm trustee/beneficiary) count toward the $15K annual gift exclusion as a gift from me or is it treated as a separate entity?

[darwinko]

My deceased parents' living trust was divided into separate trusts for my siblings and me.  I am sole trustee and current beneficiary of the one for me.  The trust allows the trustee to gift from the trust to the current beneficiary's issue up to the annual gift exclusion (currently $15K).  If I gift from trust funds $15K to my child, have I reached the exclusion limit for gifts from me to that child for the year?  I.e., if from my own funds I give even a dollar more to that child, must I file a Form 709 gift tax return, or is the trust treated as a separate entity for gift tax purposes, allowing me to give $15K more from my own funds without triggering the filing requirement?

[ScruffyCurmudgeon]

You need to understand the difference of a Gift from a Live Person and the Distribution by a Trust to a Beneficiary.

Whatever Gift Tax implications that may have been applicable to your parents when they funded the trusts are since past.  The tax liability question goes to the funds that you received a a beneficiary distribution form the Trust.  Typically, trusts do not distribute capital gain and in some states it is prohibited for a capital gain distribution unless the trust closes.  So, typically a distribution to a Beneficiary will be ca composite of taxable income and tax-exempt income, if the trusts holds bmunicipal bonds as an example.  All of this is reported by the Trustee to the Beneficiary at the end of the fiscal, or tax, year to the beneficiary on Schedule K-1, which you can find blank at the IRS.gov site.  The K-1 will lay out in a series of lines or boxes each component of the distribution, whether interest, dividends (both qualified and non-qualified), and any other type of distribution.  That forms the basis for your tax liability as income, not as Gift.

It would be very strange for a true Trust, as opposed to a Grantor or some other forms of trust, to use the words" Gift" because from the perspective of both civil law and tax law distributions are done per the provisions of the trust as a form of passing the income, and for complex trust some or all of the principal, to a beneficiary.  

If, and only if,  the Trust provides for you to choose to bypass a distribution by disclaimer and to allow it to pass to your own beneficiaries, such as a child, then the distribution is to the child and the child then bears the tax liabilities of the distribution. Note that the new tax law may make this onerous for an underage child.

If it is your intent to provide as a gift to your child an amount such as the maximum of $15,000 excludable gift, and you want to use trust proceeds, then the proper methodology would be for you to take the distribution, with its potential tax liabilities, and then gift that amount or whatever amount to your child.