Understanding Estate Taxes
5. Federal estate taxes
Here's a comparison of how much estate taxes are on various size estates in 2011 and 2012 and what we can expect in 2013.
Find the estate size that is closest to yours and see how much the tax would be on your estate.
You can see by this chart that most people who die in 2011 or 2012 will pay little or no estate taxes. But, you can also see that, unless Congress acts again by the end of 2012, many more families will be paying more in estate taxes in 2013.
Of course, with the exemption at $5 million, you may not need the estate tax savings right now. But it's important to understand how this works, because the exemption may be reduced as soon as 2013 and the value of your net estate may increase substantially by the time you die. And the good news is, if you plan ahead and use some of the tax-reducing strategies you will learn about in this presentation, you will be able to reduce or even completely eliminate estate taxes!