Lifetime Exclusion (Basic Exclusion Amount)
Chapters in this video
- 0:00 Building Carla's tax-free wealth fortress
- 1:21 The $13.99M basic exclusion amount for 2025
- 2:22 Portability and the deceased spousal unused exclusion
- 3:42 Form 706 trap and why GST is not portable
- 4:50 Unlimited marital deduction between spouses
- 5:27 Non-citizen spouse limits and the QDOT requirement
- 6:47 Rapid-fire exam recap
What this video covers
- The 2025 basic exclusion amount of $13.99 million per individual, and the combined $27.98 million shield for married couples
- How the exclusion covers the combined total of lifetime taxable gifts plus the taxable estate at death, indexed for inflation
- How portability transfers the deceased spousal unused exclusion (DSUE) to a surviving spouse, and why Form 706 must be filed even when no tax is owed
- Why the generation-skipping transfer tax (GST) exemption is NOT portable, even though the basic exclusion is
- How the unlimited marital deduction lets any amount pass between spouses tax-free during life or at death
- The non-citizen spouse limits: a special $190,000 (2025) annual gift exclusion in place of the unlimited deduction
- Why transfers at death to a non-citizen spouse require a qualified domestic trust (QDOT) to defer estate tax
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