What is a gift?

It's your money, but....

Given my experience with my late parents, who went through assets like Sherman through Georgia in their final years, make sure that you keep what you and your spouse will need before your dirt naps. Long-term care is frightfully expensive.

Correct, but IIRC the exception applies only to tuition.

You can't be that much younger than I, so dig into your memory of the past, when the bride's parents gave the party. What you describe isn't creative, it's traditional, and it's your party. (Spending $22,000 when cake, nuts, mints, punch, coffee and tea in the church parlor after the ceremony will do nicely brings us back to "it's your money.")

If they've printed a book "Estate Planning for Dummies" they got their target audience described perfectly. This is not a DIY project, and there are horror stories aplenty of people who tried to save a few bucks and wound up with a mess. Yes, there are many creative schemes for avoiding estate tax. Pay some money for professional help.

Medical bills too, I thought.

Maybe; depends on the terms of the forgiveness.

Yes. But you'll need an appraisal every year.

Well worth it.

Maybe. For whose benefit are they travelling?

Seth

every other year. Get an appraisal in December, and make that year's gift in December, and the following year's gift in January.

Does your son (and his wife, if married) qualify for their own mortgage? If so, why not just gift the money, $24K if he's single, $48K if married, and let him pay the mortgage down? It's already september next week, if you gift $48K this year and $48K Jan 1, there's $96K he can use as a downpayment.

Also - the student - You can gift ahead, 5 yrs (i.e. $60K from you, and $60K from your wife) into a 529 account for your Dr Daughter. Don't know if that helps your planning, but it's an option.

Joe

As you approach your sixties is NOT the time to be unloading your assets upon your children unless you have a few million - in which case I am available for adoption.

My father had a disabling heart attack at 60 and died at 86. My mother is still going strong at

I know a man who unloaded over $2 million on his children through the 90's, lost a lot more than that in the dot-com-bust, and is now 68, in perfect health, and hasn't taken a vacation in the last two years because he is watching his money.

Dick

Keep in mind that the estate tax may, or may not, disappear depending on Congress in, I believe, 2010.

Dick

The other answers you have received are excellent and you should take heed. There is one point that has not been addressed, though.

If you live in a community property state, you and your wife can give joint gifts of up $24,000 without worrying too much about where the money came from. However if you don't, you have to be a little more careful that the gifts come from each of you separately, or that they can be traced to your separate funds, each part of which is within the annual exemption amount.

If most of the money legally belongs to you, for example, you and your wife can still jointly give $24,000 per person per year without and qualify for the annual exemption. However you are also required to file a gift tax return and elect to "split" the gift.

Stu