[Albertafriend]

Something is puzzling me and perhaps you can help. The 0 and his wife—do they file one form together or do they each file a form? From what I have read they each gifted each of their daughters $12,000 for a total of $24,000 each or $48,000 altogether. It is my understanding that being first lady is an unpaid position so what was her source of income that she could make these gifts to her daughters? If she doesn’t have a separate source of income and the gifts were deducted from the form filed for the couple wouldn’t that be way over the legal limit they could deduct? I’m sorry if I am asking dumb questions but I have no idea how American income tax works.

[Kellis91789]

Married filing jointly allows double the gift limit.

[NaturalBornConservative]

No. Actually if a person is married and makes a gift to another married person they could technically gift $48,000 as a one time gift (12K from each and 12K to each). It doesn't matter which one made the money, since under the related party rules half of ones income belongs to their spouse. And aside from that you can gift as much as you want to anyone and not owe any gift tax under current law. You just need to file a return and take the applicable tax uniform tax credit to get out of paying any tax.

But you raise another point the media missed. The Obamas file a joint income tax return. The tax rates for married couples are lower than the rates for those who are single or file separately. So if his secretary files as single, her tax rate would be higher even with less income than a married couple, but under the circumstances it doesn't matter, she could not have paid a higher effective tax rate than the Obamas regardless of her filing status.