Forget about unsecured debt - if a parent wants to give their child $100,000 there is no way to do that without paying taxes (or spreading it out over many year

Forget about unsecured debt - if a parent wants to give their child $100,000 there is no way to do that without paying taxes (or spreading it out over many years). If they could simply "loan" their child $100k (with no intention to ever get paid back), then forgive the debt tax-free, they'd have successfully gotten around the gift tax. The same thing could be potentially be used by an employer: instead of paying wages, they could just "loan" (again, not intending to be paid back) their employee money, then forgive the debt tax-free.