No, it doesn't necessarily have to.
True gifts (as opposed to quid pro quo payments that are being called gifts as a tax dodge) do
not get reported anywhere by the
recipient no matter what the amount is.
If Bill Gates gave me $4 billion in MSFT stock tomorrow I don't have to report a single thing.
Gates, however, would have to report a $4,000,000,000 minus $14,000 taxable gift on his
gift tax return.
The rules are:
- Recipient never has to report the gift, no matter how big it is (IIRC there are some exceptions when the giver is a non-resident alien).
- The first $14,000 of per-recipient gifts in a calendar year do not have to be reported by the giver, either, no matter how much money is gifted. So if I gave $14,000 each to 100 different people I have nothing to report even though I gave away $1,400,000.
- Once you give more than $14,000 to any one person in a calendar year you have to file a gift tax return but the tax is only based on the taxable portion of the gifts. So if I gave 99 people $14,000 and gave one person $20,000, I would file a gift tax return showing $6,000 of taxable gifts. If I gave 98 people $14,000 and gave one person $20,000 and gave another persion $16,000 I would show $8,000 of taxable gifts (($20000-$14000) + ($16000-$14000)).