Applicable Federal Rate - AFR

  

An AFR is a composite of interest rates, useful for tax purposes, primarily when loans are being made to "close parties," i.e. family members.

If the interest rate on either short-, mid-, or long-term loans being proffered to family members is below this IRS minimum rate, then the IRS likely will consider the low interest rate as a gift rather than an actual loan. Whichever party has "borrowed" the money would then be subject to the very cleverly named "gift tax."

Taxes levied. Tears shed. Next time, Uncle Roger pays at least prime.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is the IRS?19 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop What is the i r s Well

00:07

i rest might be the three most hated letters in

00:10

the alphabet Well after d m v a pms and

00:13

well maybe std The i r s is the internal

00:17

revenue service Their internal i e inside the government they're

00:21

in charge of collecting revenue A k a They take

00:25

money from your pocket in the form of taxes and

00:28

they deliver it to uncle sam and they you know

00:31

service you and it doesn't feel good So yeah these

00:35

are the guys from the us treasury department who checked

00:38

to make sure you filled out your income tax forms

00:41

correctly and submitted the proper amount And if you screwed

00:45

up in any way they will let you know about

00:47

it and a half in the form of angry letters

00:49

Phone calls knocks on your front door rocks through your

00:52

back window Whatever it takes to get you to pay

00:54

your fair share of taxes Like why should you get

00:58

away with not paying when the jones has paid all

01:00

they owed Or the irs can do even worse and

01:04

audit you with an audit he irs will request extensive

01:08

and very specific information and records from you Paycheck deductions

01:12

all kinds of things You claim that you did that

01:15

were deductible that may or may not have been forcing

01:17

you to spend hours upon hours at your public storage

01:20

unit digging through boxes you hoped and prayed you'd never

01:23

see again Well after the third solid week of having

01:26

your financial history poked and prodded like you've had to

01:29

turn your head and cough you uh might actually be

01:32

ready and willing to trade in those three letters of 00:01:35.13 --> [endTime] irs for rough one of those stds instead

Up Next

Finance: What is Bond Amortization?
7 Views

What is Bond Amortization? Bond amortization is simply the spreading out of the cost of the bond over time. Bonds have amortization schedules and t...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)