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You can structure your gift in different ways to meet your needs. For example, you can make a:

Specific Bequest   a gift of a specific dollar amount, asset, or percentage of your estate to a specific person or organization.

Residual Bequest a gift all or a percentage of the balance remaining in your estate after expenses, taxes, and the specific bequests have been paid.

Contingent Bequest a ‘back-up’ person or organization to receive the gift if the first one named is deceased or no longer exists.

Conditional Bequest A gift of any of the above types which also requires that certain conditions be met in order to inherit the bequest.

Should you be gifting sooner, or later?

If you gift more than $2, 012,000 (the current exemption amount) upon your death, you will owe Washington estate taxes.  No matter how much you gift while you are alive, you will not owe any gift taxes to the state of Washington.  Because the IRS taxes gifts both lifetime gifts and gifts at death (with few exceptions), if you gift more than $5,430,000 (the current federal exemption amount) during life or at death, you will owe estate taxes to the IRS. Those of you with estates under the current federal exemption amount, but over the Washington exemption amount, may be in a position to consider doing some lifetime gifting to avoid the Washington estate tax but that could end up costing your heirs more in capital gains than they would pay in estate taxes because of the various tax rates. Be sure to think carefully before making any decisions on whether it is best to gift now, or later.