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Gift Tax Workaround, Legal?

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What is the name of your state? Nevada

A friend of mine gave me $155,000 and told me that in order to avoid reporting it we could set it up like a loan: were she lends me the money at 5% interest rate of which I pay once a year interest only payment and then at the end of 30 years the remaining principle is due. We then use her once a year $11,000 allowable gift to be forgiven from the loan each year. At first we thought that I should pay her the interest payment with by sending her a check and then deduct the $11,000 gift from the principle, but we just came up with a second way, the $11,000 gift is first forgiven from the interest payment and the remainder is deducted from the principle so that I never have to send her any money and by the time 30 years are up all the interest payments and principle should be paid by the yearly $11,000 gifts. (The way I look at it is, she could just as well give me $11,000 cash each year and then I could pay her back the interest payment and then the remainder towards principle, so it would be practically the same as just forgiven the amounts, just easier) I don't see any laws being broken in either one of these methods but would the IRS have a problem with them? Are they legal?

Is it a good idea to form a document stating that she will forgive as a gift $11,000 of this loan per year or would that look too structured in case of the dreaded IRS audit?

This gift occured in October 2004 and now I reliese she could have just filed a gift tax return last apirl and she still wouldn't have had to pay tax on it until reaching the $1,000,000 lifetime mark. Is it too late if she just files a gift tax return on it this coming apiril?

Thank You sincerely from the bottom of my heart to those who so generous donate their time to help others. Merry Christmas.
 


abezon

Senior Member
If she makes you a loan, she has to report the interest as income, whether she collects it or not. It's probably better for her to just file a gift tax return once. She probably won't pay any gift taxes anyway. At any rate, if she can afford to gift you $155,000 cash, she can afford to pay an estate planner to help her set up a gifting program.
 
Thank You abezon

You are right abezon, it's seems much better for her to just file a gift tax return. So $11,000 would be excluded by the annual exclusion and the remaining $144,000 would be a taxable gift. $144,000 would be subtracted from her $1,000,000 unified credit and she would not have to pay any taxes on this gift, correct?

The other thing is that the gift happened in October 2004 and she should have sent the Gift Tax Return in by April 15, 2005. What do you advise we should do?

1. Can she send a 2004 Gift Tax Return right now and would she have to pay a penalty, even though no tax was due?

2. Or does she have to redo her 2004 taxes and send all her 2004 tax forms back to the IRS?

3. Or should she just report it on her 2005 taxes?

Thank You So Much.
 

abezon

Senior Member
File the 2004 gift tax return now. Penalties are based on taxed owed. Since xx% of $0 is still $0, penalties should not be a problem. A gift tax return is separate from an income tax return. One does not affect the other.

BTW, the unified credit is $1.5M.
 

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