The 2026 annual gift exclusion is $19,000 per person, per recipient, per year — and it doesn't touch your lifetime exemption. A couple with two adult children can move $76,000 a year, per child, out of their taxable estate. Add a spouse-in-law and it's $152,000.

Most families use zero of it. A few families quietly use all of it, for decades, and reshape the balance sheet by the time the second parent dies.

The move most under-used: fund a 529 for grandchildren. The move most badly done: gifting appreciated stock during your lifetime instead of letting it pass with a stepped-up basis at death. Cash and low-basis assets: gift now. High-basis appreciated assets: hold.