Unified Credit (Applicable Exclusion Amount)
A credit is an amount that eliminates or reduces tax. A unified credit applies to both the gift tax and the estate tax. You must subtract the unified credit from any gift tax that you owe. Any unified credit you use against your gift tax in one year reduces the amount of credit that you can use against your gift tax in a later year. The total amount used during life against your gift tax reduces the credit available to use against your estate tax.
The unified credit against taxable gifts will remain at $345,800 (exempting $1 million from tax) through 2009, while the unified credit against estate tax increases during the same period. The following table shows the unified credit and applicable exclusion amount for the calendar years in which a gift is made or a decedent dies after 2001.
For Gift Tax Purposes: For Estate Tax Purposes:
Year Unified Credit Applicable Exclusion Amount Unified Credit Applicable Exclusion Amount
2002 and 2003 345,800 1,000,000 345,800 1,000,000
2004 and 2005 345,800 1,000,000 555,800 1,500,000
2006, 2007, and 2008 345,800 1,000,000 780,800 2,000,000
2009 345,800 1,000,000 1,455,800 3,500,000
For examples of how the credit works, see Applying the Unified Credit to Gift Tax and Applying the Unified Credit to Estate Tax, later.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p950/ar02.html#d0e223