hi ant,
i knew you were kidding about the first part, but i took it to be spiced with sarcasm. in other words, i took it to be that they do try to get away with it some times.
one of the reasons i gave the car example was cuz of the liability - i figured they may not keep it in their own names. and i knew it was a common high dollar gift that is given.
but from my reading in the past, the main reason for the law in the first place was to keep wealthy people from sheltering their income by placing funds in their kids accounts, and then the last dollars of income end up getting taxed at a lot lesser rate ?
is the lesson that if they give something to their kids, it better be something other than a gift of money ?
i was pretty sure that if a parent buys his kid a house - that it gets included in the lifetime exemption for the parent ? (as far as gift tax rules)