A Simpler Verifiable Gift Tax

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to propose a simpler verifiable gift tax, to reassert basic principles of transfer taxes, to encourage simple, outright gifts, and to eliminate some of the major abuses in the current gift tax regime. To accomplish these goals, the proposed tax would simplify gift completion rules, adopt a hard-to-complete rule of transfer taxation, reduce the annual exclusion while expanding the consumption exclusion, and employ loss of preference inducements to increase gift tax compliance.

Keywords: gift tax, annual exclusion, consumption exclusion, portability, compliance, valuation distortions, FLP, GRAT

JEL Classification: H20, H21, H24, K34