In general, the recipient of your assets doesn’t have to pay taxes, but let’s explain how taxes and estate planning work together.

How to minimize taxes in California generally involves planning for several types of taxes, including estate taxes, gift taxes, capital gains taxes, and property taxes.

There is no time by which you must have created an estate plan, but there are several factors that usually lead someone to create one.

If you have a living trust, then it’s likely that your trust uses your social security number as your TAX ID number and you file taxes just as you always have done so.

Married couples can use the estate tax exemption amount of both spouses, so long as the surviving spouse timely files Form 706 with the IRS.

There are some relevant tax updates for 2023 that anyone involved in estate planning and estate administration (probate/trust administration) should be aware of.

Portability involves using a deceased spouse’s estate tax exclusion; there are important deadlines that have recently changed.