The Applicable exclusion amount is the amount that you can give away during your life or at your death without paying a federal gift or estate tax. Under existing law, this amount is $1 million in 2002 and 2003 and stays at that amount for gift tax purposes. For estate tax purposes, this amount increases to $1.5 million in 2004 and 2005, $2 million in 2006 and 2007, and $3.5 million in 2009. The estate tax is scheduled to be repealed in 2010 and be reinstated in 2011 and the applicable exclusion amount is scheduled to decrease back to $1 million.