Estate Taxes Persuasive Essay

When planning your estate, it’s important to understand that avoiding probate does not eliminate or reduce estate taxes. Although avoiding probate may reduce or eliminate estate income taxes, avoiding probate doesn’t have any effect on estate taxes. In fact, avoiding probate and avoiding estate taxes are two unrelated concepts. The following is an overview of the two concepts: Avoiding Probate

Avoiding probate is a strategy used to pass the decedent’s property directly to the beneficiaries without going through the probate court. Most common estates (smaller estates that are less than the exclusion amount that triggers the estate tax) use probate avoidance methods for the following reasons: 1) By avoiding probate court, property of the decedent is distributed to the beneficiaries quicker than if they had to wait for the probate process to end, which is usually a year depending on state law. 2) By using probate avoidance methods on assets that earn income after death, the income earned on those assets are the property of the beneficiary and taxed to the beneficiary. Therefore, estate income tax liability is either eliminated or reduced.

For more on avoiding probate, refer to the following articles:
Tips to Avoid Probate in your Estate Plan.
Commit Enough Assets to Cover Expenses in Your Estate Plan.
Tips to
The IRS doesn’t care about the probate court or probate avoidance methods on assets. For the purpose of assessing an estate tax, the IRS looks at the gross value of the estate. The gross value is calculated by totaling the value of all property belonging to a decedent, including property in a revocable trust, regardless of how the property is titled. Fortunately, common estates don’t have to worry about estate taxes because the gross value of the estate is less than the exclusion amount that triggers the estate tax. So, estate taxes concern only the large