Gift tax in the United States
If a person is a non-resident alien for purposes of gift tax, taxation of gifts is determined in a different way. If the property is not located in the U.S., there is no gift tax. If it is intangible property, such as shares in U.S. corporations and interests in partnerships or LLCs, there is no gift tax.
Tax policy and economic inequality in the United States
The inheritance tax, which is also known as the "gift tax", has been altered in the Post-World War II era as well. First established in 1932 as a means to raise tax revenue from the wealthiest Americans, the inheritance tax was put at a nominal rate of 25% points lower than the estate tax which meant its effective rate was 18.7%. Its exemption, up to $50,000, was the same as the estate tax exemption. Under current law, individuals can give gifts of up to $13,000 without incurring a tax and couples can poll their gift together to give a gift of up to $26,000 a year without incurring a tax. The lifetime gift tax exemption is $5 million which is the same amount as the estate tax exemption. These two exemptions are directly tied to each other as the amount exempted from one reduces the amount that can be exempted from the other at a 1:1 ratio. The inheritance/gift tax generally affects a very small percentage of the population as most citizens do not inherit anything from their deceased relatives in any given year. In 2000, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published a report that found that 1.6% of Americans received an inheritance of $100,000 or more and an additional 1.1% received an inheritance worth $50,000 to $100,000 while 91.9% of Americans did not receive an inheritance. A 2010 report conducted by Citizens for Tax Justice found that only 0.6% of the population would pass on an inheritance in the event of death in that fiscal year. Accordingly, data shows that inheritance taxes are a tax almost exclusively on the wealthy. In 1986, Congress enacted legislation to prevent trust funds of wealthy individuals from skipping a generation before taxes had to be paid on the inheritance.