[Drew68]

That’s an average of $19,700 per person. Although it sounds like some got a lot more. Whatever the case definitely generous of her to give them a bonus.

I'll bet it came out to right under $19,000 per person.

"Annual Exclusion: You can gift up to $19,000 per person, per year, to an unlimited number of recipients without triggering any gift tax or a reporting requirement."

[Dilbert San Diego]

Excellent point. ,

We know that all of her finance people reviewed the financial impact, tax impact on employees etc, of giving all this money to the employees , before they did it.

[KarlInOhio]

They were her employees, so there is just about no way she can count this as a gift rather than pay. I have even been hit by the IRS for a $50 Amazon gift card from my company.

Now the good news: since this is likely counted as a legitimate business expense, Swift will now deduct $197 million at a 37% rate so will pay $73 million less in income tax. If her employees pay at a marginal rate of 22%, that still nets about $30 million less for goverment's greedy hand.