[dragonwriter]

> Former (US) tax lawyer here. You can give up to the maximum allowable gift amount each year, to each of your parents.

Not a tax lawyer, ever, but I know the part that is missing in this statement: “without incurring any immediate or future tax liability [0] or immediate reporting requirement.” If you exceed the per-donor per-recipient limit, you have to file a gift tax return, and the gift counts against your lifetime exemption limit (currently $12.92 million, but also indexed annually by inflation.) If your total lifetime reportable gifts ever exceed that, you’ll have to pay gift tax on the reportable gifts over the limit, and if yiur estate exceeds whatever is left ofnyour exemption when you die, your estate will pay estate tax.

[0] barring a future but retrospective change to tax law, which is theoretically possible but impossible to plan around.

[gnicholas]

I could add more and more detail, but at some point it doesn't make the comment more helpful, and there's a tradeoff in terms of readability. People are less likely to read super long and jargon-filled comments.

Also, there's a tradeoff in writing something quickly and having it get lots of eyeballs, at a time when those eyeballs are seeing other advice that is much less correct.

Lastly, I did refer to almost all of these specifics in my other comments on the page. But there is no way to include all possible detail in a comment like this, and if someone did it would not get read nearly as much. Also, retroactive changes to tax law are very disfavored at law and would undoubtedly be challenged in court.

[natdempk]

Pet peeve of mine: The lifetime exemption limit is absolutely critical information to include when talking about the gift tax in any context because otherwise people take it to mean something completely incorrect. In my experience, the yearly limit being the limit before taxes kick in is one of the most common misconceptions about gift taxes and your comment above basically phrasing it as "maximum allowable gift amount each year" continues this misconception.

I don't mean to be hostile, but I really think its much better phrasing the limit as ~$12 million before being taxable, and just mentioning that you have to report it on your taxes above a certain limit in a given year and that it eats into a lifetime ~$12 million exemption. I basically see people get this wrong any time they mention it on the internet or in real life. I can see though in writing this it does get a bit confusing to say succinctly.