Wealth Transfer Tax
Chapters in this video
- 0:00 Wealth transfer basics: gift tax versus estate tax
- 1:03 Annual gift exclusion and gift splitting on Form 709
- 2:14 Lifetime unified exemption bucket mechanics
- 3:15 Portability, DSUE, and the Form 706 election
- 4:04 Carryover basis versus stepped-up basis
- 5:12 Charitable donation of appreciated securities
- 6:38 Rapid-fire exam recap
What this video covers
- The 2026 annual gift tax exclusion of $19,000 per recipient per year, and how married couples can split gifts to reach $38,000 with Form 709
- How the lifetime unified gift and estate tax exemption works as a single $15,000,000 bucket that taxable gifts drain dollar for dollar
- The portability election and why the executor must file Form 706 for the first deceased spouse to preserve the deceased spousal unused exemption (DSUE)
- Why portability applies to estate and gift tax but does not apply to the generation-skipping transfer tax (GST)
- Carryover basis on lifetime gifts versus stepped-up basis at death, and which strategy eliminates embedded capital gains
- The special charitable donation rule: fair market value deduction for appreciated securities held more than one year with zero capital gains tax
- The marital deduction and charitable deduction as unlimited estate tax exclusions for U.S. citizen spouses and qualified charities
Read the full lesson, free
This video's complete written lesson is free to read in the CertFuel app, no signup wall. The complete Series 65 course also includes adaptive practice questions and spaced-repetition flashcards, free through December 31, 2026.