Tag Archive for Inheritance Tax

What Expatriates Need To Know: How U.S. Inheritance Tax Laws Might Impact Your Inheritance/Estate/Gift Tax

What Expatriates Need to Know: How U..S Inheritance Tax Laws Might Impact Your Inheritance/Estate/Gift Tax

A Guide To US Gift and Estate Tax For U.S. Expatriates

Are you worried about paying inheritance/estate/gift tax in the United States and your country of residence? In this guide, we’ll discuss what the inheritance tax is when it’s taxable and what tax obligation you might have in relation to inheriting an estate.

Losing a loved one is often an emotionally charged and complicated process. Things can get even more complicated by different laws and regulations if you’re inheriting property from someone who lives overseas or you reside abroad. It’s important to understand how US inheritance tax laws might impact you.

What Is An Inheritance? What is the Estate Tax?
The term “inheritance” refers to the transfer of wealth from a deceased person to his or her heirs. This includes real estate, stocks, bonds, cash, bank accounts, retirement plans, life insurance policies, etc. The estate tax is a state tax that you pay when you receive money or property from the estate of a deceased person.

What Is an Estate?
In the United States, a deceased person’s estate is a legal entity created after his/her passing. It is usually responsible for collecting the deceased person’s worldwide assets, paying off any outstanding debts, and distributing the rest among the deceased person’s beneficiaries. The estate includes everything the deceased person owned, whether real or personal property, tangible or intangible, anywhere in the world. The Estate tax is a tax on the estate (the property, money, and possessions) of someone who’s died.

How Much Can a U.S. Citizen Inherit Tax-Free?
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Written by | Posted in Inheritance Tax

Tax Professionals – Tax Question Of The Week

Tax Question, TaxConnections

Every Friday we post one question from our Ask Tax Question feature and invite our tax professional audience to help our visitor. The Tax Question this week is as follows:

I just inherited the equivalent in foreign currency of ~ US$115K so I need to file Form 3520 and would like to wire transfer most of it from my foreign account into my US bank account. Can I file F 3520 right away? Do I have to wait until 2019 to do it?

Tax Professionals – We encourage you to leave your comments!

 

 

Written by | Posted in Weekly Tax Question

President Trumps Tax Reform Bill Increases Inheritance Tax Deduction To $11,800,000

Charles Woodson, Estate Tax, Inheritance Tax Expert

A frequent question is whether inheritances are taxable. This is a frequently misunderstood question related to taxation and can be complicated. When someone passes away, all of their assets will be subject to inheritance taxation, and whatever is left over after paying the inheritance tax passes to the decedent’s beneficiaries.

Sound bleak? Don’t worry, very few decedents’ estates ever pay any inheritance tax, primarily because the code exempts a liberal amount of the estate from taxation; thus, only very large estates are subject to inheritance tax. In fact, with the passage of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (tax reform), the estate tax deduction has been increased to $11,180,000* for 2018 and is inflation adjusted in future years. That generally means that estates valued at $11,180,000* or less will not pay any federal estate taxes and those in excess of the exemption amount only pay inheritance tax on amounts in excess of the exemption amount. Of interest, there are less than 10,000 deaths each year for which the decedent’s estate exceeds the exemption amount, so for most estates, there will be no estate tax and the beneficiaries will generally inherit the entire estate.

* Note that, as with anything tax-related, the exemption is not always a fixed amount. It must be reduced by prior gifts in excess of the annual gift exemption, and it can be increased for a surviving spouse by the decedent’s unused exemption amount.

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Written by | Posted in Estate Tax • Inheritance Tax

New Jersey Estate Tax: The Uninvited Guest

New Jersey collects both an inheritance tax and its own estate tax, separate from the federal estate tax. Under current law, the estate of every New Jersey resident decedent dying after December 31, 2001 shall be taxed as if the death occurred under the federal laws in effect on December 31, 2001. Because the applicable federal exclusion amount was $675,000 in 2001, a New Jersey estate tax will be due for estates in excess of $675,000 passing to someone other than a surviving spouse — even though the current federal exclusion amount is significantly greater ($5.34 million for deaths in 2014).

While it might seem unfair that the New Jersey estate tax is calculated as if the applicable federal exclusion amount is $675,000 rather than the actual amount in effect at the time of Read More

Written by | Posted in Estate Planning Tax • North America