Joint Tenancy — 2025 Inst 709-NA (PDF)

If you buy U.S.-situs property with your own funds and the title to the property is held by you and a donee as joint tenants with right of survivorship and if either you or the donee may give up those rights by severing your interest, you have made a gift to the donee in the amount of half the value of the property.

In general, a gift will be considered adequately disclosed if the return or statement includes the following.

A full and complete Form 709-NA.
A description of the transferred property and any consideration received by the donor.

Instructions for Form 709-NA (2025) 7

If you create and fund a joint bank account for yourself and a donee (or a similar kind of ownership by which you can get back the entire fund without the donee's consent), you have made a gift to the donee when the donee draws on the account for the donee’s own benefit. The amount of the gift is the amount that the donee took out without any obligation to repay you. This means that any withdrawal made by the nonresident spouse must be reported on a Form 709-NA unless it can be shown that the amounts withdrawn by the nonresident spouse were limited to the nonresident spouse’s pro rata share of the amount contributed. Failure to disclose the withdrawal on a timely filed Form 709-NA with supporting documents attached to substantiate contribution may result in a determination at some later time, either upon review of a subsequent gift, or estate tax filing, that a taxable gift was previously made and not disclosed. See Adequate Disclosure, earlier.

If the added joint tenant is your spouse who is a U.S. citizen, you do not need to enter the gift on Schedule A. If your spouse is a resident of the United States or an NRNC, enter the gift on Schedule A. See Gifts to Your Spouse, later.

If the gift of joint-tenancy property is one of U.S.-situs or deemed U.S.-situs intangible property, see Who Must File and Who does not need to file , earlier.

Questions about the taxability of joint-tenant transactions may include one of timing. Documentation of these transactions should be maintained. See Supplemental Documents , later.