Gifts from joint accounts... single or double?

There are three basic options, depending on where you live and how the money in your account was earned.

1. Assuming all the money came from earnings while you were married, if you are in a community property state you can just write one check for ,000 and it will be considered to come from the two of you equally. No gift tax return will be required.
2. If you live in a separate property state and the money does not belong to both of equally, you can send in separate checks.
3. If the money is not equally yours, you could send in a single check from both of you. However in this case you would need to file a gift tax return and elect gift splitting, where the IRS will treat the money as coming equally from you both even though in fact it does not.

Separate property state. Some is from her SS, some is transferred in from her investment account, some transferred in from my investment account. Impossible to know what the actual split is as money drifts in and out from various sources according to who has a cash surplus. We can each give a check for $14,000?

Yes, that should work. In your case the best practice would be to file a gift tax return and select gift splitting to qualify for the full exemption. But if you don't keep track of how much each of you put in that account, and you normally treat it as belonging half to each of you, that will probably be considered a gift from the one who contributed more, and be seen as coming half from each of you, particularly if you write two separate checks.

In any case, it's not a huge violation if you get it wrong - until the two of you make more than $11 million in gifts that are not within the annual exemption, there won't be any actual tax anyway.