On the basis of estate and tax planning, cash gifts between individual to individual, or between individual and organization, the process is known to follow a familiar legal and standard context. The process is well-known, accepted and hardly questioned when it is conducted in accordance with the boilerplate.
In direct opposition, when cash gift exchange follows the standard regulations, limitations, etc. apart from the estate and tax planning framework, there emerges a very disparate mental perspective to the thoughts of how cash can or cannot be distributed between individuals.
Initially, a legal and rule-based process entitling legitimacy for handling of those assets for those of sufficient or greater financial means. Professional advice is retained as a step in maintain the rules. However, outside of this familiar context, the exchange of non-corporate gifts carries and air of suspicion, or worse in specific locales, particularly Kentucky and Nebraska, have established actual penalties under specific circumstances.
Mentally and structurally, those who seek to explore gifting outside of tax and estate planning scenarios are involved first in a choice, whether legitimate or not, from the latest and mostly well-intended programs. This examination scenario then follows with a breaking down of a major obstacle of a different type, one that acts as a key to the gifting premise – that one gives first, initially for the benefit of the recipient, as a method of attraction and as an act of faith to others who have developed the ability to break through the same barrier. In honesty, willingly releasing ones own possessions flies in the face of all that we have learned. We are taught that unconventional, benevolent giving can be a cloak for fraudulent activity, and that ‘..all that glitters ain’t gold…’ However, benevolence is a learned behavior, or not one that is necessarily natural for many, and should be, found to be a primary trait. The absence of which creates the need for scrutiny and suspicion, given the legacy of previous abuses in some not-so- well-intended approaches historically.
Naturally, or perhaps, incredibly, and in light of the trait of air of suspicion, introduces an opposing perception through estate planning rules, where the win-win outcome is the target of all concerned, unquestionably. Tax planning in itself is a perpetual exercise in win-win, to follow the spirit of the tax laws, while seeking the best outcome for the control of all of ones acquired assets.
It is totally up to those who participate in any and all cash gifting, and certainly for purposes not involved in estate planning, to measure the motivations, the paths that exist, to insist that ethics and laws are respected, and to control expectations with regard to what can or should happen as a result of any participation.
