CAN I USE MY SPOUSE’S ANNUAL EXCLUSION TO GIVE MORE OF MY ASSETS?

Yes of course you can use your spouse’s exclusion to give more assets with your spouse’s consent because each spouse has a lifetime exemption of $5.49 million. So combined, my spouse and I can give away almost $11 million. Now, that gift can be during our lifetime, or, of course, it can be when we pass away.

But it requires consent of both spouses to gift split on the United States gift tax return that we’ll file with the IRS.

Note: The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 signed into law in December 2017 increased the exemption amounts mentioned in these videos. The personal estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax lifetime exemption was increased to $11.18 million per person. The annual gift tax exclusion was increased to $15,000 per donee per year.

Both amounts are indexed for inflation and may increase year over year until December 31, 2025, when the law sunsets and reverts to 2017 values