In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson explains the misunderstanding surrounding gift tax to family members in estate planning.
Please Note: The estate and gift tax exemption is up to $11.7 million per person and $23.4 million per married couple, not $14 million as stated in the video. We apologize for this mistake, and are working to correct the video.
Transcript:
Hi! I’m Wes Coulson from Dent-Coulson Elder Law, proudly serving clients throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area and beyond. I’d like to welcome you to our Elder Law and Estate Planning Minute. We do these to help educate people, give them some little tips, and especially to let them know the questions they need to ask, things that they’ve maybe not thought of. Our thought on that is that we can help you best if you realize the things that you need help and that we can help you with. So I hope you enjoy. Thanks!
I have almost count of the number of times that clients have come in and told me, “Well, I can’t give away all of this money to qualify for Medicaid”, or, “I can’t help my kids buy a new house because then gift tax limitation, you can only give away $15,000 a year, or only give away $15,000 per person per year.” I have come to refer that as the “big misunderstanding”. Here’s why.
There is, in fact, that annual gift tax limitation that people are referring to, but there’s another huge one, and that is the one that people like to call the “estate tax exemption”, but that’s actually the “unified estate and gift tax exemption”. So what’s that mean in plain English? It means this is how much money you can give away either during your lifetime, or when you die, or some combination of the two. That is up above 14 million dollars $11.7 million. So, as I like to tell people, “you know what, unless you are telling me you’re worth more than 14 million dollars $11.7 million dollars, God bless you, if you are, you don’t have to worry about gift tax”.
We can do this planning and move assets out of harm’s way immediately. If you want to buy your kids a new house, if you have a lot of money and say, “I just don’t want to wait until I die, I want to give them each $100,000 a piece now because they could really use it”. Go for it. Don’t worry about the “big misunderstanding”. Thanks!
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Dent-Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer’s Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older. At Dent-Coulson Elder Law, our clients’ well-being is our number one priority. For immediate help, call (618) 632-7000 (IL) or (314) 567-9292 (MO), or Contact Us and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
