For mr. Kamlet Re My Gift Tax Date Question

When they cash it, deposit it, or do something that makes it impossible for you to rescind the gift.

Ira Smilovitz

For non-charitable gifts by check, the gift is completed in the year in which the recipient cashes or deposits the check.

I think per constructive receipt rules the date is the date you give it to them, even if they deposit it later. Other responses here contradict mines, so not sure who is right. To be safe, give it to them today and have them deposit it today if you want it to be 2012.

Constructive receipt doesn't apply to gifts. Gift dating is governed by when the gift can't be undone.

Ira Smilovitz

That is absolutely correct. I was handed a check for about $4000 at a few minutes before midnight on 12/31/2002. My response was "You could have put in the mail!" Like it or not that was 2002 income to me and he included it on the

The rationale is that a check is negotiable. If I owed someone that kind of money and could find them in the next 20 minutes, I would have had a 2002 expense.

Dick

True for expenses, but not for gifts. A gift must be completed.

Ira Smilovitz

Isn't the "holder in due course" doctrine still valid? In that case, I can force a check to be made good, so the gift is completed when the check is received.

Seth

The determining factor isn't your ability to force completion but the absence of your ability to halt completion. There is plenty of settled case law to support this.

Ira Smilovitz

the gift can't be undone.

Exactly correct. And, the gift cannot be undone when it is too late to stop payment on the check.

Nope. The gift is completed when the check is cashed or deposited.