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Donations are expected during large wealth transfers, but some financial analysts said some families have rushed to donate assets to save on taxes and then realized they may have mistimed it.
In 2024 and 2025, many families rushed to their accountants, advisors, and lawyers to make estate plans to ensure they benefit from the soon-to-expire Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). The TCJA lowered tax rates, doubled the standard deduction, and doubled the lifetime gift deduction, which was scheduled to be repealed at the end of 2025. All that changed on July 4, 2025, when President Donald Trump signed into law a presidential tax and spending package that made all of these provisions permanent.
Except for those who are already accelerating their gifting, people can slow down and take their time to develop plans for gifting assets.
“Do people have buyer’s remorse? Yes, maybe some people do,” said Dina Friedman, a private wealth strategy advisor at Merrill.
what happened?
According to Cerulli & Associates, more than 11,000 baby boomers now turn 65 every day, and by 2048, approximately $124 trillion is expected to go to younger generations and charities.
With so much at stake, wealthy families supported the TCJA, which doubled the tax-exempt lifetime gift amount from $5.49 million in 2017 to $11.18 million per person ($22.36 million for married couples) in 2018. Adjusted for inflation, the exemption would reach $13.99 million per person and $27.98 million per couple by 2025. In addition to these amounts, you can make gifts of up to $19,000 per year tax-free to as many people as you wish.
However, the TCJA is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, and the lifetime exemption will revert to a lower level. The exemption was scheduled to be cut in half on January 1, 2026, to approximately $7 million for individuals and $14 million for couples. Wealthy families who didn’t want to pay millions in inheritance taxes rushed to donate as much as they could to take advantage of the limited-time large gift exemption.
And Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) last July, before the TCJA sunset. This made the huge inflation-adjusted exemption permanent. Some advisers said most wealthy Americans breathed a sigh of relief, but some regretted accelerating their giving when they could have held on to their wealth a little longer and enjoyed it.
What can a person with regrets do?
Advisers say it can be difficult to get back some of the assets you gave up, but in most cases you have some options.
Irrevocable trusts have long been known to be impossible to change or cancel, but they have evolved over the years to become more flexible, Friedman said. A “decant” is a legal process that allows a trustee to “pour” assets from an old trust into a new trust on more favorable terms, such as giving the trustee the power to distribute the principal.
“A lot depends on state law, but you can also move to a better (more favorable) state,” she said. “The trustee has the power to transfer the trust to another jurisdiction.”
Friedman said many modern irrevocable trusts also have independent third-party trust guardians that can change the terms of the trust, including changing the governing provisions, removing or replacing trustees, changing governing law, and changing beneficial interests.
With an irrevocable child trust, the grantor, or original donor, can take a loan from the trust without tax consequences, as long as it is repaid with interest, she said. Otherwise, the IRS could claim that the parents are the true beneficiaries of the trust and include the assets in their taxable estate.
Is it worth unpacking the gift?
A good tax accountant, accountant or financial advisor can probably find a way to make the change, but people need to remember that “there are tradeoffs,” said Shannon Stevens, principal and managing director of Hightower Signature Wealth.
Rob Barnett, principal investment advisor and professional tax attorney at Outlook Financial Center, said unwinding or modifying an irrevocable trust is doable, but “it’s expensive and very difficult.”
Additionally, “some changes are possible, but the trust is likely to remain intact in some form,” Stevens says. “So why would you do that? You could have saved money by creating a trust.”
Is it natural for me to really regret it?
Advisers said families who made early gifts need not regret it.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Stevens said. “Normally that’s the right thing to do, but people get frustrated when plans change, and it did. Now they look back and wonder why they did that.”
Besides, “everything they did they would have done later anyway,” Barnett said.
Medora Lee is USA TODAY’s money, markets and personal finance reporter. Please contact us at mjlee@usatoday.com. Subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday.
