Trying to understand unified tax credit

Hi. I am trying to understand the unified gift and estate tax exemption. If I understand it right, it is currently at $2M. Does this mean that a person who is living can give away $2M now tax free? Then, if they were to die, they could not take the $2M estate tax exemption?

IN 2010, the tax goes away all together. Does this mean that a person with a net worth of, say, $10M can give away all their money tax free? If this is so, would it be a valid technique to have them divest all their money and have their heirs-to-be support them?

Thanks

Up to $2M in gifts and estate inheritances can be given tax free. This means you can make gifts annually (anything over, I think, $11k has to have a gift tax form filed on it, which picks away at that $2M lifetime exemption), sporadically, whatever. Or it means you can die and leave your kids $1.9999999999 million dollars, and they pay no estate tax.

If you give your kid a gift of $100,000 each year for 20 years, you've used up the $2 million exemption (and I'm playing with easy math -- while the exemption disappears in 2010, future Congresses can reinstate it, so let's just pretend that from now until the end of time, $2M is the max exemption). So when you die, and leave your kid a mere $20, that's over the exemption, and they pay estate taxes on that twenty.