Part III—Spouse’s Consent on Gifts to Third Parties

Complete this part only if you checked “Yes” on line 19 of Part I—General Information.

Caution: A married couple may not file a joint gift tax return. However, if after reading the instructions below, you and your spouse agree to split your gifts, you should file both of your individual gift tax returns together to help the IRS process the returns and to avoid correspondence from the IRS.

If you and your spouse both consent, all gifts (including gifts of property held with your spouse as joint tenants or tenants by the entirety) either of you make to third parties during the calendar year will be considered as made one-half by each of you if all of the following apply.

• You and your spouse were married to one another at the time of the gift.

• If divorced or widowed after the gift, you did not remarry during the rest of the calendar year.

• Neither of you was a nonresident not a citizen of the United States at the time of the gift.

• You did not give your spouse a general power of appointment over the property interest transferred.

If you transferred property partly to your spouse and partly to third parties, you can only split the gifts if the interest transferred to the third parties is ascertainable at the time of the gift.

The consent is effective for the entire calendar year; therefore, all gifts made by either you or your spouse to third

Instructions for Form 709 (2025) 7

parties during the calendar year (while you were married) must be split.

If the consent is effective, the liability for the entire gift tax of each spouse is joint and several.

If you meet these requirements and want your gifts to be considered made one-half by you and one-half by your spouse, check the “Yes” box on line 1, and complete lines 2 through 7.

Line 4 If you were married to one another for all of 2025, check the “Yes” box and skip to line 6. If you were married for only part of the year, check the “No” box and go to line 5. If you were divorced or widowed after you made the gift, you cannot elect to split gifts if you remarried before the end of 2025.

Line 5 Check the box that explains the change in your marital status during the year and give the date you were married, divorced, or widowed.

Line 7. Consent of Spouse You must indicate spousal consent for gifts made to third parties to be considered as made one-half by each spouse by using the checkbox, and attaching a Notice of Consent. Your spouse (the consenting spouse) must sign the Notice of Consent for your gift-splitting election to be valid. The Notice of Consent must be signed and dated by the consenting spouse and must include a statement signifying consent to treat all gifts made to third parties as having been made one-half by each spouse, such as “[Name of consenting spouse] elects to treat all gifts made to third parties as having been made one-half by each spouse.” If only one spouse is required to file a gift tax return, then only one Notice of Consent is required, and it must be attached to the donor spouse’s return. If both spouses are required to file gift tax returns, then each spouse should execute a Notice of Consent to be attached to the donor spouse’s return. The Notice of Consent may generally be signed at any time after the end of the calendar year. However, there are two exceptions.

1. The consent may not be signified after April 15 following the end of the year in which the gift was made. But if neither you nor your spouse has filed a gift tax return for the year on or before that date, the consent must be made on the first gift tax return for the year filed by either of you.

2. The consent may not be obtained after a notice of deficiency for the gift tax for the year has been sent to either you or your spouse.

The executor for a deceased spouse or the guardian for a legally incompetent spouse may indicate the consent.

When the Consenting Spouse Must Also File a Gift Tax Return

In general, if you and your spouse elect gift splitting, then both spouses must file their own individual gift tax return.

However, only one spouse must file a return if the requirements of either of the exceptions below are met. In these exceptions, “gifts” means transfers (or parts of transfers) that do not qualify for the political organization, educational, or medical exclusion.

Exception 1. During the calendar year:

• Only one spouse made any gifts,

• The total value of these gifts to each third-party donee does not exceed $38,000, and

• All of the gifts were of present interests.

Exception 2. During the calendar year:

• Only one spouse (the donor spouse) made gifts of more than $19,000 but not more than $38,000 to any third-party donee,

• The only gifts made by the other spouse (the consenting spouse) were gifts of not more than $19,000 to third-party donees other than those to whom the donor spouse made gifts, and

• All of the gifts by both spouses were of present interests.

If either of the above exceptions is met, only the donor spouse must file a return and the consenting spouse signifies consent on that return.

Because you must complete Schedules A, B, C, and D to fill out Part II, you will find instructions for these schedules before the instructions for Part II.