That's how much you can gift annually without filing a gift tax exlusion form. Then there's an ADDITIONAL $12.9M (starting 2023) that you can gift and have excluded from taxes (hence - gift tax exclusion) over your entire life.

When you filed that form with the IRS, you were filing a form saying "I gave beyond my annual limit, but this additional amount should not be taxed because I have gifted less than $12.9M in my lifetime"