Inheritance & Estate Tax Calculator — Federal $15M Exemption, State Death Taxes & Who Actually Pays

The estate required

State the owner lives in (that's the state whose death taxes apply to most of the estate)

Home & other real estate ($, market value) Investments, bank accounts & other property ($) Retirement accounts — 401(k)/IRA/TSP ($) Life insurance the owner personally owns ($, death benefit)

⚙️ More detail — debts, prior gifts, widowed exemption

Debts — mortgage balance, loans ($, subtracted) Large lifetime gifts already made ($ beyond the $19,000/person/yr annual exclusion — they use up federal exemption) Owner is widowed and inherited their late spouse's unused federal exemption ("portability")

Who inherits drives the tax

Shares should add up to 100%. The relationship matters twice: anything left to a spouse or charity is deducted before estate tax is figured, and in the five inheritance-tax states the heir's relationship sets their rate.

💍 Leaving everything to a spouse? Then there's usually zero tax now (the unlimited marital deduction) — the real question moves to the second death, when both spouses' assets pass together. Model that by entering the combined estate with the spouse row removed — and remember most states don't honor federal portability.

The death-tax verdict

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Federal estate tax

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State estate tax

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Inheritance tax (heirs pay)

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Taxable estate

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Room before ANY estate tax

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Effective rate on the estate

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Heir by heir

The taxes nobody warns you about

The biggest real tax is usually income tax, not death tax. Inherited 401(k)s and traditional IRAs never got taxed — so the heirs pay ordinary income tax as they withdraw, usually within 10 years. On a $400,000 IRA that can dwarf every number above. Model the smart withdrawal timing with our inherited IRA calculator.
Step-up basis is the quiet superpower. A house or stock portfolio gets a fresh cost basis at death — decades of capital gains simply vanish for the heirs. This is why "sell it before you die to simplify things" is often a five-figure mistake.
Life insurance is income-tax-free but NOT estate-tax-free. If the owner held the policy, the death benefit counts in the estate. Big policies near a state threshold are why irrevocable life-insurance trusts (ILITs) exist.
Most states don't honor portability. The federal "inherit your spouse's unused exemption" trick generally doesn't work for state estate taxes — a couple in Oregon or Massachusetts can waste the first spouse's state exemption entirely without trust planning.
Annual gifting shrinks a taxable estate for free. $19,000 per giver, per recipient, per year (2026) moves money out with no tax, no filing, no exemption used. A couple with three married kids can move $228k/yr.
Pennsylvania pays you to file early: 5% discount on inheritance tax paid within 3 months of death.
Moving states matters more than most planning. The estate is taxed mainly by the owner's home state (plus any state where real estate sits) — retiring from Oregon to Arizona erases a 10–16% tax that starts at $1M.

📍 Every state's death taxes at a glance reference

33 states have no death tax at all. 12 states + DC tax large estates, 5 tax heirs by relationship (Maryland does both). Pick a state above to highlight its row.

2026 rules gathered from state revenue sources and the July 2025 federal law (OBBBA) in July 2026. State schedules are progressive and full of fine print — the calculator applies published bracket tables to the amount over each exemption, which is a good planning estimate, not a filing-grade computation. Washington changed twice recently: deaths in the first half of 2026 face the temporary 35% top rate; this tool models deaths after July 1, 2026 (10–20%, $3M exemption).