YOUR MONEY: Making gifts in a low interest rate environment – Opinion – Wicked Local
Columns share an author’s personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper’s reporting or from personal experience.
Largely unnoticed amidst this year’s significant events is the current historically low interest rate environment. These low interest rates present an opportunity for making gifts to family members at a low gift tax cost. This article will discuss three possible transfer strategies that are made more attractive by low interest raes.
Intra-family loans. A loan is not a gift because the lender receives a promise to be repaid. For a loan to be respected by the IRS it needs to be a bona fide debt and contain an interest rate at least equal to the monthly published applicable federal rate (AFR). For loans made in September, the short-term (three years or less) AFR is .14%
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