Gift tax returns
Down payment help
Helping a child or grandchild buy a first house. The annual exclusion covers a chunk; the rest reduces your lifetime exemption.
Gift tax returns
Form 709, for the year you gave generously.
Most gifts under the annual exclusion never need a return. But once you cross the threshold — paying a child's down payment, funding a grandchild's tuition outside the direct-pay rule, transferring stock to family — Form 709 comes into play. We file it cleanly and track your lifetime exemption.
What this is
A separate federal return that runs alongside your 1040.
Form 709 is the federal gift tax return. It's required when you give more than the annual exclusion amount to any single person in a year ($18,000 in 2024, $19,000 in 2025 and 2026). The return itself rarely results in a tax bill — most gifts simply reduce your lifetime exemption ($13.99 million in 2025) rather than triggering immediate tax. But filing the return is how the IRS tracks your cumulative gifts, which matters at the estate-tax stage decades later. We file the return, track your cumulative exemption used, and coordinate with your estate-planning attorney when one is involved.
When this comes up
The common gift-tax scenarios.
Most people who file Form 709 do it once or twice in a lifetime — and the scenarios cluster around predictable moments.
Gift tax returns
Tuition + medical (the carve-outs)
Direct payments to a school for tuition or to a medical provider for someone's bills are excluded entirely. We help you structure these so the exclusion applies.
Gift tax returns
Family business transfers
Gifting shares of a closely-held business to the next generation. Often paired with a qualified appraisal to establish fair market value.
Gift tax returns
529 plan superfunding
Five years of annual-exclusion gifts to a 529 plan in one year — a common estate-planning move. Requires Form 709 + a five-year election.
Gift tax returns
Gift splitting between spouses
Married couples can elect to treat gifts as made half by each spouse, doubling the annual exclusion. Requires both spouses to consent on Form 709.
Gift tax returns
Crypto, art, and non-cash gifts
Gifts of non-cash assets need a fair-market-value calculation as of the gift date. We work through the valuation and the supporting documentation.
Why it's worth filing even when nothing's owed
Lifetime exemption tracking matters at the estate stage.
The federal lifetime gift + estate tax exemption ($13.99 million per person in 2025, scheduled to drop in 2026 if Congress doesn't act) is shared across your gift-tax filings and your eventual estate. Every dollar of taxable gifts you make during life reduces the exemption available at death. Filing Form 709 establishes the running total — without those filings, your estate's executor faces a much harder accounting problem decades later. The form is short; the recordkeeping it creates is permanent.
Common questions
What people ask us about this.
Often paired with
Related services on the menu.
Trust returns
Trust and Estate Tax Return Preparation (Form 1041)
A parent passed, a revocable trust became irrevocable, and now you're the trustee.
ExploreEntity setup
Business Entity Setup and Formation
Most entity setup is templated and fine — until the first tax return reveals you elected the wrong structure for your income.
ExploreRetirement plans
Self-Employed Retirement Plan Setup
Self-employed retirement plans look the same on paper and behave wildly differently in practice.
ExploreBig gifts have small paperwork.
Form 709 is short relative to its impact. We file it cleanly and track your lifetime exemption usage year over year.