Estate and Gift Taxes

Separate federal estate, gift, GST, basis, reporting, and state death-tax questions with visible year and source labels.

Every guide opens with a simple explanation, then goes deeper into mechanics, tradeoffs, examples, state differences and sources.

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Guides in this section

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    Federal Estate Tax

    The federal estate tax applies to a decedent's taxable estate after statutory deductions and credits; filing can also be relevant for elections even when no tax is ultimately payable.

  • Annual Gift-Tax Exclusion

    A dated guide to the 2026 per-donor, per-recipient gift exclusion, present-interest requirement, reporting boundary, and relationship to the lifetime exemption.

  • Community Property and Estate Planning

    Community-property law classifies ownership between spouses and can affect control, division, creditor exposure, federal reporting, and basis at death; nine states use a general community-property system and some states permit elective arrangements.

  • Federal Gift Tax and Form 709

    Federal gift tax is a transfer-tax system imposed on certain lifetime transfers by the donor; many gifts use exclusions or the donor's available applicable exclusion without producing current tax.

  • Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax

    GST tax is a separate federal transfer-tax system for certain transfers to skip persons or skip trusts; exemption allocation and trust inclusion ratios require specific analysis.

  • Income-Tax Basis at Death

    Property acquired from a decedent often receives a basis tied to fair market value at the applicable valuation date under federal law, but exceptions, entity rules, community property, and estate-inclusion questions matter.

  • Lifetime Estate-and-Gift Tax Exemption

    Understand the 2026 $15 million federal basic exclusion, how taxable lifetime gifts affect the death-time computation, and why portability, GST exemption, and state tax require separate analysis.

  • Portability and Form 706

    Portability can allow a surviving spouse to use a deceased spouse's unused federal exclusion, but the deceased spouse's estate generally must make a valid election on Form 706 or qualify for available relief.

  • State Estate and Inheritance Taxes

    A state estate tax is generally assessed by reference to the estate, while an inheritance tax generally depends on what a beneficiary receives and the beneficiary's class; domicile and in-state property can both matter.

Calculators, bypass trusts and state taxes