Estate Planning

Estate Taxes: The Worst States in Which to Die

By Greg Herman-Giddens

Here's a recent marketwatch.com article on State Estate and Inheritance Taxes, and the various exemption amounts for each state.  A majority of states, including Florida, have no state estate or inheritance taxes, and a couple of others effectively have the same $5 million exemption as the federal estate tax. 

As reported in the article, North Carolina falls into that category, although due to an outdated reference to the Internal Revenue Code in the North Carolina statutes, some practitioners are of the opinion that North Carolina's current exemption is only $1 million.  It is expected that the matter will be resolved by a technical corrections bill later this year.  Assuming that North Carolina's estate tax exemption is $5 million, it is certainly not one of the worst places to die, but because the North Carolina tax is merely a deduction, and not a credit, against the federal estate tax, it is also not one of the best.

There are also many states, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, that have much lower exemptions.  New Jersey is ranked as the worst place to die from a death tax perspective.

Full post as published by North Carolina Estate Planning Blog on February 22, 2011 (boomark / email).