Minimizing tax paid on money recieved to buy a house?

[Ali Qudsi]

Hi Guys, 

I was hoping someone might guide me in the right direction. To make a long story short a relative has given me and my wife a large sum of money as a gift and we want to use this to purchase our first Condo/home. Is there a special type of account or fund I can deposit this into to avoid paying taxes on money that I plan on using completely for a real estate venture? Or to minimize the double taxing of both "income" tax and property tax?

Thanks in advance!

[Gregory B.]

1) if the person who gave the gift recognized it on their tax return as a gift you don’t owe tax, and there is a large gift lifetime gift limit (over 5m 2) property tax has nothing to do with income tax, which is what the gift has effect on. Only way to reduce this is through local or state credits/deductions