[microtherion]

> if my dad wants to give me $30,001 this year, or even $300,000 this year, that he's already paid taxes on it and it's not the government's business

Surely you agree that if he instead were to hire an extra gardener with the same $30,000, that money would be taxable as the gardener's income? So why should somebody who works for their money pay taxes on it, but not somebody who receives the money as a gift?

[refurb]

Because the money has already been taxed?

But to your point, a gift tax also stops people from “gifting” their gardener and avoiding taxes on both ends.

[microtherion]

> Because the money has already been taxed?

I stipulated that it is the SAME money. In both cases, it has "already been taxed" by the person spending the money. Yet in one case, the person receiving the money pays taxes, in the other, they do not.

[refurb]

Yes, but one is a business transaction (exchange of goods or services) and one is not.

So i would argue they aren’t the same.

[OJFord]

I assume therefore that you dutifully calculate and pay income tax on any and all birthday or Christmas presents?

[TheCoelacanth]

Yes, I have calculated and paid tax on all gifts that I have ever given in excess of the reporting threshold (i.e. none, because I don't give away gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars).

[OJFord]

Ditto reply to sibling https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18335478

[microtherion]

To the extent that we have received large gifts from relatives, yes, we've reported those accurately to the tax authorities in two different countries. There was no tax due, but I would not have objected philosophically to the gifts being taxed.

[OJFord]

Huh, sorry, as a Briton it's quite literally a foreign concept to me; I thought I was joking.

In the UK there's inheritance tax to pay over a threshold if you die within 7 years of making the gift, but otherwise there's not a 'gift tax'.

The situation you describe still isn't the same as declaring it as income though - assuming you are working, if it were taxed at your marginal rate of income tax you'd already be over any threshold no matter how small the gift.