Can someone tell me if the gift tax applies to non-family members too? I'm planning to give my close friend about $30k to help with medical bills and I'm confused if I need to do anything about taxes.

Just wanted to add another important point that might help with your house down payment situation - if your parents are married and you're also married, they can actually give up to $68,000 per year without any gift tax forms! Here's how it works: Each of your parents can give $17,000 to you AND $17,000 to your spouse (that's $34,000 per parent, or $68,000 total). This is completely separate from the medical/tuition exemptions others mentioned. So for your $120,000 down payment, your parents could give you $68,000 this year with no paperwork, then give you another $52,000 next year (again, no forms needed if it's $68,000 or less). This way they could avoid filing any gift tax returns entirely while still helping you with the full amount over two years. Even if you're not married yet, this might be worth considering if you're planning to get married before buying the house - the timing could save your parents some paperwork hassle!

Quick question - does this extension situation affect how I should handle this? I also have a duplicate 1099-NEC on my transcript and filed an extension. Is there any special consideration or form I need to file because I'm past the normal deadline?

I went through this exact same situation two years ago with a duplicate 1099-NEC from a consulting client. The key thing that helped me was creating a simple spreadsheet that matched my bank deposits to each 1099-NEC I received. This made it crystal clear which ones were legitimate and which was the duplicate. When I filed, I reported only the actual income received and included a brief statement on my Schedule C explaining the discrepancy. I also kept screenshots of my income transcript showing the duplicate, along with my bank statements proving I only received one payment. The IRS never contacted me about it, but having all that documentation organized gave me peace of mind. Don't overthink it - just report what you actually earned and keep good records showing why there's a difference between your transcript and your return.

Has anyone used TurboTax to file Form 709? I'm trying to figure out if their Premier version actually handles gift tax returns properly or if I should just do the paper form. The software costs so much and I don't want to pay if it can't handle this form correctly.

Just wanted to share my experience since I was in a very similar situation last year. I gave my sister $65,000 for her business startup and was completely lost on Form 709. The key thing that helped me was understanding that Part 2, Line 4 is where you enter your AVAILABLE unified credit, not the total lifetime exemption amount. Since this was my first gift over the annual exclusion, I entered the full unified credit amount of $5,113,800 (which corresponds to the $12.92 million exemption). The taxable gift amount ($60,000 - $17,000 annual exclusion = $43,000) gets calculated in Part 1, and then Part 2 figures out how much of your credit you're using. One mistake I almost made was forgetting to attach Schedule A with all the gift details. Make sure you complete that first before moving to the main form. The IRS needs to see exactly what you gave, to whom, and when. Good luck with your filing!

Has anyone managed to reach PriorTax customer service directly? What's the best contact method? Their website just sends me to FAQs that don't address my problem.

I had almost the exact same issue with PriorTax two weeks ago! The infinite loading on "save & go" is definitely a known bug they're dealing with. Here's what finally worked for me: 1. Try using an incognito/private browsing window - this bypasses any cached data that might be corrupted 2. If you're using Chrome, go to Settings > Advanced > Reset and clean up > Clean up computer and run that tool 3. Most importantly - try accessing your return through their mobile app instead of the website. For some reason the mobile version doesn't have the same JavaScript conflicts I was stuck for 4 days before discovering the mobile app workaround. All my data was still there and I could edit/save everything normally through the app. Once I completed everything on mobile, I was able to access it normally on desktop again. Don't give up on PriorTax yet - you're so close to finishing! The mobile app trick saved me from having to start over with different software.

One option nobody's mentioned yet - if your client uses TurboTax or similar software for their personal stuff, see if they can export their stock transactions from there into a format Ultratax can read. Sometimes the consumer software does a better job with the initial import from brokerages than the pro software does.

For complex stock reporting situations like this, I've found that breaking the problem down into phases really helps. First, I separate the employee stock options (ISOs, NQSOs, ESPP) from regular brokerage trades since they have different reporting requirements. The employee stock options often need Form 3921 or 3922 reporting in addition to the capital gains treatment, so make sure you're capturing the ordinary income component correctly. For the regular trades, focus on getting the covered securities imported first since those should have complete basis information from the broker. For the non-covered securities missing cost basis, I create a spreadsheet to track down the original purchase information. Sometimes clients have old statements or trade confirmations they forgot about. If not, you might need to research historical pricing for the acquisition dates. One thing that's saved me time - before doing any bulk imports, I always test with just 2-3 transactions first to make sure the mapping is working correctly. It's much easier to fix formatting issues on a small sample than to clean up 40 botched imports. The wash sale errors in Ultratax can be overly aggressive, so don't panic. Review each flagged transaction manually - the software sometimes flags things that aren't actually wash sales due to timing or different security classifications.