How to Fill Out IRS Form 709: Schedule A, Tax, and Filing

To fill out IRS Form 709, the federal gift tax return, you enter your donor information at the top, list each reportable gift on Schedule A with its date, description, and fair market value, complete Schedule B if you have filed gift tax returns in prior years, compute the tax in Part 2 while applying your lifetime unified credit, sign the return, and file it by April 15 of the year after the gift. You file the return whenever a gift to any single person during 2026 exceeded $19,000, whenever you and your spouse elect to split gifts, or whenever you gave a future interest of any amount.¹ Most filers owe no tax, because taxable gifts simply reduce a $15,000,000 lifetime exemption, but the IRS still wants the return so it can track how much of that exemption you have used.²

One boundary worth naming up front: tuition paid directly to a school, medical bills paid directly to a provider, gifts to a U.S.-citizen spouse, and contributions to Section 527 political organizations are excluded outright and do not require Form 709 at all.³ The tuition and medical exclusions only work if the check goes straight to the institution; hand the money to the student or patient and it becomes a regular gift subject to the $19,000 annual limit.

Before You Start

Three 2026 numbers drive almost every entry on the form:

Annual exclusion: $19,000 per recipient. Anything at or below this to any one person is not a taxable gift.¹
Lifetime exemption: $15,000,000. Taxable gifts above the annual exclusion reduce this exemption dollar for dollar, and only gifts beyond it generate an actual tax bill.⁴
Non-citizen spouse exclusion: $194,000. Gifts to a spouse who is not a U.S. citizen are shielded only up to this amount for the year.⁵

Pull together the paperwork before you open the form: copies of every Form 709 you have filed in prior years, appraisals for any real estate or closely held business interests, brokerage statements showing gift-date prices for stock, the recipient’s full name and address, and your spouse’s Social Security number if you are married. If any gift went into a trust, you will also need the trust’s tax ID number and a copy of the trust agreement.

Part 1: Donor Information and Gift Splitting

Enter your name, address, Social Security number, and citizenship status at the top of the form. Part 1 also asks whether you and your spouse want to split gifts for the year.

Gift splitting treats every gift either spouse made during the year as if each of you gave half, which effectively doubles the annual exclusion to $38,000 per recipient. The election is all or nothing: you cannot split some gifts and not others. Both spouses must sign the consent, and once signed, both are jointly liable for any gift tax owed that year.⁶ If your spouse also made gifts that independently trigger a filing requirement, each of you files a separate Form 709, and both returns must show the election and carry both signatures. A missing spouse signature can void the split and shift the full gift back onto whoever wrote the check.

Schedule A: Listing Each Gift

Schedule A is where you itemize the gifts. It has three parts: Part 1 for gifts subject only to gift tax, Part 2 for direct skips (gifts to grandchildren or other skip persons subject to the generation-skipping transfer tax), and Part 3 for indirect skips.

For every gift, list:

The recipient’s name, address, and relationship to you
A description of what you gave: a street address for real estate, share count and company name for stock, the amount for cash
Your adjusted basis in the property (generally what you paid plus improvements)
The date of the gift
The fair market value on that date

Part 4 of Schedule A does the arithmetic. Total the gifts, subtract the $19,000 annual exclusion for each recipient of a present interest, subtract any marital or charitable deductions, and the remainder is your taxable gifts for the year. That number carries to the tax computation on page 1.⁷

Valuing Non-Cash Gifts

Cash is easy. Everything else needs a defensible fair market value as of the gift date.

Publicly traded stock is valued at the average of the highest and lowest selling prices on the gift date. If the stock did not trade that day, use a weighted average of the nearest trading days before and after.⁸

Real estate and closely held business interests almost always require a professional appraisal. The appraiser must follow generally accepted appraisal standards and document the valuation method, the comparable sales or financial data used, and any discounts claimed for minority ownership or lack of marketability. Attach the appraisal to the return. A one-line description with a round number and no supporting analysis is what lets the IRS reopen a gift years later.

The 529 Plan Five-Year Election

You can front-load a 529 education savings plan with up to five years of annual exclusions in one calendar year and elect to spread the gift evenly across five years for gift tax purposes. For 2026, that means a single contribution of up to $95,000 ($19,000 × 5) treated as $19,000 per year for five years, with no taxable gift.⁹

To make the election, report the full contribution on Schedule A, check the box indicating five-year averaging, and show one-fifth as the current-year gift. File Form 709 for each of the next four years to report the remaining fifths. Any additional gift you make to the same person during those years counts against their $19,000 exclusion, since it is already being used by the carried-forward portion. If the donor dies before the five years are up, the unspread portion snaps back into the donor’s estate. Splitting spouses can front-load up to $190,000 for a single beneficiary and both file returns for the contribution year.

Generation-Skipping Transfers

If any gift goes to a “skip person” — generally someone two or more generations below you, such as a grandchild, or an unrelated person more than 37.5 years younger — you may also owe the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax.¹⁰ The GST tax is a flat 40% on top of any gift tax, but you have a separate GST exemption equal to the basic exclusion amount ($15,000,000 for 2026) that you allocate on Schedule A and Schedule D.¹ The IRS allocates GST exemption to direct skips automatically unless you opt out; for transfers to trusts, allocation usually needs an affirmative entry on Schedule D.

Schedule B: Prior-Year Gifts

Have you ever filed Form 709 before? If yes, complete Schedule B. List every prior-period taxable gift in chronological order along with the unified credit used each time.⁷ The IRS combines those amounts with the current year’s taxable gifts to figure your cumulative total, which sets your tax bracket and shows how much lifetime exemption you have left. If this is your first gift tax return, check “No” on Part 1, line 18a and skip the schedule.

Part 2: Computing the Tax

Part 2 on page 1 stacks the current year’s taxable gifts on top of every prior year’s taxable gifts, runs the combined total through the graduated rate table, and then subtracts the tax already computed on the prior gifts. The rates run from 18% on the first $10,000 of cumulative taxable gifts up to 40% on amounts over $1,000,000.⁷

Then apply the unified credit. For 2026, the credit equals the tax that would be due on $15,000,000 under the rate table. If your cumulative lifetime taxable gifts sit under $15,000,000, the credit zeroes out the tax and you pay nothing.⁴ Run the computation anyway so the IRS can post how much credit you consumed.

Adequate Disclosure

The IRS normally has three years after you file to challenge a gift’s reported value. That clock only starts if the gift is “adequately disclosed” on the return. Skimp on disclosure and the IRS can revalue the gift at any time, even decades later.¹¹

Adequate disclosure means the return or an attached statement includes:

A description of the transferred property and any consideration you received
Your identity and relationship to each recipient
For transfers to trusts, the trust’s tax ID number and either the trust document or a description of its terms
A detailed explanation of how you determined fair market value, including the financial data used, any restrictions on the property, and any discounts claimed
A statement of any position that contradicts published IRS guidance

For cash gifts, this is a single sentence. For real estate or business interests, the valuation methodology is what carries the load, and the safest approach is attaching a full appraisal that covers each point.

Signing and Filing

The donor signs at the bottom of page 1 under penalties of perjury. If you elected gift splitting, your spouse signs the consent section of Part 1. Both signatures have to be there.

You can file Form 709 electronically through the IRS Modernized e-File (MeF) system using an authorized e-file provider or reporting agent.¹² Paper returns and attachments go to:

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service Center
Kansas City, MO 64999¹³

Amended returns go to a different address: Internal Revenue Service Center, Attn: E&G, Stop 824G, 7940 Kentucky Drive, Florence, KY 41042-2915.¹³ Mail paper returns certified with a return receipt, and hold onto a complete copy along with any appraisals and trust documents. The IRS does not typically acknowledge receipt; if something is off, you will hear from them by notice.

Deadline and Extensions

Form 709 is due April 15 of the year after the gift. For 2026 gifts, that is April 15, 2027, moving to the next business day if April 15 lands on a weekend or federal holiday.¹⁴ Any tax owed is due the same day.

An automatic extension of your individual income tax return on Form 4868 also extends Form 709; no separate filing needed. If you are not extending your income tax return, file Form 8892 for a six-month extension of the gift tax return.¹⁵ Either extension buys time to file, not time to pay: interest still runs on any unpaid tax from the original due date.

If the donor dies during the gift year, the executor files the donor’s final Form 709 by the earlier of the estate tax return deadline (including extensions) or April 15 of the following year.¹⁴

The late-filing penalty is 5% of any tax due per month or partial month, capped at 25%.¹⁶ When you owe no tax, the penalty is zero — but filing on time still matters, because that is what starts the three-year statute of limitations running on every gift you disclosed. Unpaid gift tax also accrues interest at the federal underpayment rate, 7% per year compounded daily as of early 2026 and adjusted quarterly.¹⁷

1
Internal Revenue Service. Estate and Gift Tax Updates
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 709, United States Gift (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2503 – Taxable Gifts
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2010 – Unified Credit Against Estate Tax
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Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes for Nonresidents Not Citizens of the United States
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2513 – Gift by Husband or Wife to Third Party
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 709
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GovInfo. 26 CFR 25.2512-2 – Stocks and Bonds
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 529 – Qualified Tuition Programs
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2613 – Skip Person and Non-Skip Person Defined
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eCFR. 26 CFR 301.6501(c)-1 – Exceptions to General Period of Limitations on Assessment and Collection
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Internal Revenue Service. Modernized e-File (MeF) for Gift Taxes
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to File – Forms Beginning With the Number 7
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6075 – Time for Filing Estate and Gift Tax Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8892
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Interest Rates Remain the Same for the First Quarter of 2026