How much of a monetary gift can you recieve without being taxed?

j29_04: How much of a monetary gift can you recieve without being taxed?
My wife and I are in a financial bind. My friend is willing to loan us money. Obviously not through a bank. My friend will gift us the money as a gift (of course we are paying it back) into our bank account. My question is does anyone know how much of a gift I can receive withouth having to pay taxes on it? We live in CA if that makes any difference.
S5tevo, thanks for the link and info.

Answers and Views:

Answer by dewkisses02
if you’re going to pay it back, then it’s a LOAN, not a gift.

and there’s no limit.

Answer by BCP
I believe the gift limit is $ 12,000 before it’s taxable. Since there are two of you (you and wife) you should be able to receive gifts of $ 12,000 each. A loan is not taxable although if it’s not a true loan, eg. you don’t have to pay it back or a large sum at no interest, the IRS may consider it a taxable gift.

Answer by tom_gpp
You can legally receive a gift up to 12k without paying taxes on it. However, if you are paying it back then you wouldn’t classify it as a gift

Answer by Steveo
As long as it is a gift, then there is no tax. It’s like a loan. You don’t pay taxes on a loan. If the loan were paid off with interest, then there still is nothing for you to have to report to IRS.

Since your friend is not gifting the money to you, he has nothing to declare to IRS.

Answer by leslie
The answer to the original ‘how much” is any amount that they want to give you and that THEY want to pay the gift tax on. They can give you $ 200,000 and YOU would not be taxed and in the end neither would they unless they have a very sizeable estate.

Now there are dozens of rules between a and b and limitations of estate size.