Gifted Stock

Your grandparents bought stock in a company. They grow older. Sickly. Pruney. They know they don't have long. They gift the stock to you.

Why gift stock vs cash? Well, there are huge tax advantages to gifting stock rather than cash.

Grandmama bought Coke stock on the sly in college for a buck a share. It's $45 now. If she sold the stock, she'd pay taxes on a gain of $44, to net her about $30 a share.

She could then give you $30 in cash—but if she just gave you the stock itself it "re-basis-es" or resets its base value, as being worth $45 to you, as if you paid $45 a share for it. So there is then no tax paid on the spread from the dollar she paid to the current value of $45.

In most situations, the max amount allowed to be gifted is about $15,000 a year, so most gifts of stock happen over years as Grandmama hangs onto life like a rock climber in a windstorm. At the end of their lives, they're allowed to gift about $11 million in total before the taxman really cometh...and this can be valued in the form of appreciated stock, which...you will really appreciate.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Gift tax?0 Views

00:00

Finance Allah Shmoop What is gift tax Of those I

00:08

Rs people They ruin everyone's fun You can't even give

00:12

away things anymore without it being taxed Even have some

00:15

t Khun spill into a harbor Boston gift tax party

00:18

Anyone know well so overly Simply as of two thousand

00:21

nineteen you're allowed to give about fifteen grand a year

00:23

with the expectation that this number will rise a bit

00:26

with inflation year after year And on that fifteen grand

00:29

or less there is no tax owed You have to

00:32

declare to the IRS people that you gifted but you

00:35

don't have to write them An incremental check and all

00:37

kinds of little tweaks to the definitions of givers and

00:40

receivers have made the state transfer easier in this country

00:43

For example of Family Khun Gift in multiple directions from

00:46

multiple sources like each year Mama Bear Khun Gift fifteen

00:49

grand to baby bear than fifteen grand too sulky teenager

00:53

texting bear then another fifteen grand Teo the Elder Bear

00:57

for a total of forty five grand gifted from Mama

00:59

Bear tax free Then Daddy Bear can do the same

01:03

for each kid and the elder such that they can

01:06

gift in one year ninety thousand dollars total in gifts

01:10

with no tax And there are other twists They aren't

01:13

limited to gifting Fax like they Khun gift art and

01:16

jewelry and mountain vats of honey or porridge or privately

01:20

appreciated stock like stock they bought for a dollar is

01:23

now trading at fifty and they can give fifteen grand

01:26

worth of that stock So Hugh may reasonably wonder how

01:29

they would determine the value of private stock if it's

01:32

not public or really any of the above None actively

01:35

traded and valued things like jewelry and stuff like that

01:38

Well there isn't a daily market for shares in private

01:40

companies or artwork or jewelry Usually So how do you

01:43

assess the value Well usually value is taken it whatever

01:47

the last round was invested at by professional investors of

01:50

its private stock even if it was five years ago

01:52

and the company has gone up a ton in value

01:54

But if it has well it's likely the company will

01:57

have been required to get a new four o nine

01:59

a valuation which is basically just a few high priced

02:02

lawyers assessing professionally what the company is worth based on

02:05

other similar companies that were sold or funded recently It's

02:09

the best guess of lawyers and accountants and the same

02:11

applies to appraisals of jewelry and art And like if

02:14

your parents are giving that stuff away to you too

02:17

willing to keep it under fifteen grand the arrest I

02:19

won't bug you So you can imagine that a family

02:21

wanted to transfer as much as they possibly could to

02:24

their kids Will The impetus could involve a whole lot

02:26

of downward pressure on valuations such that the fifteen grand

02:30

that was tax free gift herbal might really be worth

02:33

now something more like twenty grand or thirty grand or

02:36

maybe even fifty grand were it to sell that day

02:38

That is private valuations carry all kinds of risks The

02:41

gift ease as well Like if they want to sell

02:44

them like Mama thinks that jewelry a piece that was

02:48

made for her is really worth thirty four thousand dollars

02:50

And he's getting away with something stating It's only worth

02:53

fifteen But then baby there goes to try to sell

02:55

it on eBay and gets like three grand for it

02:57

Well may be discounting private things make sense The key

03:00

notion here is that fifteen grand of value can be

03:03

transferred tax free legally Happily the IRS has no tax

03:07

on that But above there there's all kinds of gift

03:09

tax right So what happens if Mama Bear gives baby

03:12

bear twenty thousand dollars in cash one year You know

03:15

Tio enable the baby or to buy a top of

03:17

the line Dr Braun's porridge warmer Well either Baby bear

03:20

can just pay income tax on the five thousand dollars

03:23

difference like fifteen grand was tax free and then five

03:26

thousand above that that five thousand above it is taxable

03:29

as a gift tax And in fact it's Mama Bear

03:32

who would technically be legally responsible for paying that tax

03:36

on the five grand But baby Bear can do it

03:38

if well you know if she wants or she can

03:40

write Mama bear a check for five grand back and

03:43

it's the net number that the IRS cares about There's

03:46

all kinds of other gift taxes the president's change them

03:50

limits and maximums all the time Currently a family Khun

03:53

Gift in about eleven million dollars in change with essentially

03:56

no estate tax when they died That protects the farms

03:59

in the Midwest from having to be sold When you

04:02

know great Grandpa Joe dies and he on the farm

04:05

for one hundred years That's how gift taxes air set

04:08

up And well if someone gives you a horse isn't

04:11

there a phrase about looking a gift horse in the

04:13

mouth You know be careful with those things by

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)