Taxes after a death

Three returns, and which ones apply to you

The final individual return, Form 1040, covering the part of the year the person was alive. Almost every family files this one.
The estate's income tax return, Form 1041, if the estate itself earns income during administration — interest, dividends, rent, a gain on a sale.
The federal estate tax return, Form 706, which applies only to very large estates and which almost nobody files.

"Estate tax" and "income tax on the estate" are different things and are constantly confused. The first is a tax on transferring wealth and reaches almost no one. The second is ordinary income tax on money the estate earned after the death.

^{Source 4}

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Sahvelo gives information drawn from statutes, agency guidance and official forms. It is not legal advice for your particular situation. Terms & disclaimer.

Why estate tax almost certainly does not apply

Federal estate tax applies only above an exclusion amount that runs into the millions of dollars per person and is indexed annually. The overwhelming majority of estates are nowhere near it, and a surviving spouse can generally inherit without estate tax regardless of size.

Sahvelo does not state the current exclusion figure here because it changes every year and a stale number is worse than none. The IRS publishes it, and the link is below.

A separate question is state-level tax, and it is not one question but two. Twelve of the states Sahvelo has reviewed levy an estate tax, charged to the estate on its size. A smaller minority levy an inheritance tax, charged to each person who receives, at a rate set by how they were related to the person who died. A state can have one, the other, both or neither, and the two are constantly mistaken for each other — including by people who have just been told their state "has no estate tax" and reasonably conclude that nothing is owed. Sahvelo has verified the position in the five states below and does not list the rest.

If someone is selling you estate tax planning for an ordinary estate, ask them to show you the number that makes it apply.

If the bank says the account is frozen

This happens in states that levy an inheritance tax, and among the states Sahvelo has verified it is New Jersey. Because the tax is a lien on everything the person owned from the moment they died, a bank, a brokerage or a transfer agent is not permitted to hand over a resident's assets until the state issues written consent. Branch staff often describe this as the account being frozen and stop there.

It is not fully frozen, and three things are available immediately without any waiver at all. Half of the account can be released now, to the executor, administrator, legal representative or surviving joint tenant. A check made payable to New Jersey Inheritance or Estate Tax can be honored in any amount the account will cover. And a check the person wrote before they died can be honored if it is presented within ten days of the death.^{Source 14}

For the other half, close family do not have to wait for the state. Form L-8 is a self-executing waiver: a Class A beneficiary files it directly with the bank or the brokerage firm, not with the Division of Taxation, and it substitutes for the full waiver for everything except real estate.^{Source 14Source 13}

A great deal of property is outside this entirely and needs no waiver of any kind — wages and unused leave, pension and profit-sharing payments, US savings bonds, household goods, personal effects, cash, and every motor vehicle. Real property a couple held as tenants by the entirety passes to the survivor without one, and so do assets already held in a trust.^{Source 14}

Property that transfers without a waiver still has to be reported on the return. Not needing consent to move something is not the same as it being outside the tax.^{Source 14}

Which form you need is a decidable question, and New Jersey publishes the decision as a flowchart. Three things close the easy route: any beneficiary who is not Class A, any asset passing under a disclaimer, and any asset passing into or through a trust. Fail one of those and the estate files a full return, Form IT-R. Clear all three and it splits by asset — Form L-9 to the Division of Taxation for real estate, Form L-8 to each financial institution for bank accounts, New Jersey stocks and bonds and brokerage accounts. There is a fourth path where the only complication is a trust whose beneficiaries are all believed to be Class A: Form L-4 asks for waivers, without a guarantee.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Resident Inheritance Tax Flowchart (deaths on or after 1 January 2018) (opens in a new tab)•Source 14}

A mutually acknowledged child is Class A and owes nothing — and is barred from Form L-8 anyway, along with siblings, sons- and daughters-in-law, nieces and nephews, ex-spouses, step-grandchildren and charities. Owing no tax and being able to prove it quickly are different questions.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Form L-8 — Affidavit for Non-Real Estate Investments (02/18) (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Resident Inheritance Tax Flowchart (deaths on or after 1 January 2018) (opens in a new tab)•Source 14}

Take Form L-8 to the bank. It says so on the form: do not mail it to the Division of Taxation, because you will not get a waiver back. And Form 0-1, the full waiver, cannot be downloaded or filled in yourself at all — only the Inheritance Tax Branch issues it.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Form L-8 — Affidavit for Non-Real Estate Investments (02/18) (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Tax Waiver Requirements (opens in a new tab)•Source 13Source 14}

There is a clock, and it is not the one most families expect. The return is due and the tax is payable within eight months of the death, and interest runs at ten per cent a year from that same date. Form IT-EXT buys time to file and no time at all to pay. None of it can be filed electronically.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Inheritance Tax Filing Requirements (opens in a new tab)•}

Three limits sit inside the half a bank may release. It is half of the whole account rather than half for each claimant, whether the account was in one name or joint. Stocks and bonds are outside the blanket rule entirely, so a brokerage may release nothing without the Director's written consent. And whether a retirement account is frozen turns on who is holding it: an IRA at a bank needs a waiver, the same IRA as an annuity administered by an insurance company does not.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Tax Waiver Requirements — Blanket Waiver (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Tax Waiver Requirements — specific waiver situations (opens in a new tab)•}

Two checks can still be paid out of the frozen remainder. One made payable to New Jersey Inheritance or Estate Tax may be honored in any amount the account will cover, so the tax can be paid from the money the tax is freezing. And a check the person wrote before they died may be honored if it reaches the bank within ten days, and it comes off the top before the fifty per cent is worked out.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Tax Waiver Requirements — Blanket Waiver (opens in a new tab)•}

The lien runs fifteen years from the date of death, and it exists whether or not any tax is ever assessed. That is why a bank asks for a waiver from a family that owes nothing.^{Source: N.J. Division of Taxation, Tax Waiver Requirements (opens in a new tab)•}

^{Source 13Source 14}

What to file, and when

In order. Only the first phase applies to most families.

The final individual return

Due on the ordinary date for the year of death

April 15 following the year of death

File the final Form 1040

It covers income from 1 January to the date of death. The due date is the ordinary one for that tax year — normally 15 April of the following year — regardless of when in the year the death happened. A personal representative can request an extension in the usual way.^{Source 1}
- A surviving spouse can usually still file a joint return for the year of death.
- Write "DECEASED", the person's name and the date of death across the top of the return.
- Returns for earlier years that were never filed are also the personal representative's responsibility.
Claim any refund with Form 1310

A refund owed to someone who has died is not paid automatically. Form 1310 is how a claimant asks for it. It is not needed if you are a surviving spouse filing a joint return, or a court-appointed representative filing the original return with the court certificate attached.^{Source 2}
- Open IRS Form 1310 (opens in a new tab)
Do after: file final

This is the most commonly missed money in the whole estate process. Nobody at the IRS calls to say a refund is sitting there.
Only if it applies

Tell the IRS who is acting, with Form 56

Form 56 notifies the IRS of the fiduciary relationship, so correspondence about the deceased person reaches the personal representative rather than an empty house.^{Source 3}
- Open IRS Form 56 (opens in a new tab)
Do after: file final

If the estate earns income

During administration

Only if there is income after the death — interest, dividends, rent, or a gain on selling something.

Only if it applies

Get an EIN for the estate

The estate is its own taxpayer once it has income, and it needs its own number. Free, and issued immediately online.
- Apply for an EIN with the IRS (opens in a new tab)
Only if it applies

File Form 1041 for the estate

Required once the estate's gross income for the year reaches the filing threshold. Income distributed to beneficiaries is generally taxed to them rather than to the estate, which is reported on a Schedule K-1.

Do after: get ein tax

Only for very large estates

Nine months from the date of death

If you are not sure whether this applies, it almost certainly does not.

Nine months from the date of death Only if it applies

File Form 706 if the estate exceeds the federal exclusion

Due nine months after the date of death, with an available extension. A surviving spouse may also want to file to preserve the unused exclusion for later, which is a decision to take with an accountant rather than from a page.
- Read the IRS on estate tax (opens in a new tab)

What your state wants, by state

The federal picture above is the same everywhere. What differs by state is not mainly the threshold, which most families will never approach — it is who the state charges, what has to be filed even where nothing is owed, and which office it goes to. A minority of states tax an estate or the people inheriting from it. A larger number levy nothing and still want a document: a return with no tax on it, a lien released, a clearance the probate court will not close the estate without. Those are the differences that cost a family time and a sale, and they are the ones a national summary leaves out.

Whether the state taxes the estate itself

A minority do, and the answer 'no' does not mean nothing is owed or nothing is filed

The answer in 50 states

Alabama

No. Alabama's requirement was based on the federal credit for state death taxes, which finally phased out on 1 January 2005, and the Department's current page says estates where the death was after 31 December 2004 are not required to file with Alabama. The chapter that establishes the tax is still in Title 40.^{Source: Alabama Department of Revenue — Alabama Fiduciary, Estate, and Inheritance Tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: Alabama Department of Revenue news release — Alabama estate tax filings no longer required (deaths after 31 December 2004) (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Alaska

No. Alaska stopped collecting a state estate tax in 2005, and there is no state individual income tax either — both answered by the Court System's own probate self-help material, which is where an Alaskan personal representative is actually sent.^{Source: Alaska Court System — Probate self-help, Federal Tax Matters: Alaska has no state estate tax and no state income tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Arizona

No estate tax. The Department of Revenue publishes a fiduciary and estate procedure covering fiduciary income tax and a Certificate of Taxes, and publishes no estate tax alongside it.^{Source 7}
Arkansas

No, for a death on or after 1 January 2005, and the mechanism is worth knowing because it is not a repeal. Arkansas made its estate tax SELF-TERMINATING: Act 645 of 2003 amended the chapter so that it ceases to be operative once the federal credit for state death taxes in 26 U.S.C. 2011 is repealed completely for estates of decedents dying on or after that date. That credit was repealed outright in December 2014. So the chapter is still in the books and stopped operating. Sahvelo has read those two enactments and has NOT been able to read the current codified Arkansas Code, because the Bureau of Legislative Research refuses its own code paths and the publication the state designates serves no text, so it cannot rule out a later act reinstating a death tax.^{Source: Act 645 of 2003, Arkansas 84th General Assembly (Senate Bill 60), amending Ark. Code 26-59-103 (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
California

No estate tax. The Franchise Tax Board's estates and trusts guidance covers the decedent's and the estate's income tax returns, and does not levy a tax on the estate itself.^{Source 8}
Colorado

No filing is required for a death after 31 December 2004, and Colorado has collected nothing since 2014. The legislature's own tax handbook explains why: Colorado replaced its 1927 inheritance tax with an estate tax in 1980, set that tax equal to the federal credit for state death taxes, and the credit was eliminated. Colorado allows no exemption of its own, which is what you would expect of a tax that is purely a function of the federal one.^{Source: Colorado General Assembly, Legislative Council Staff — Online Tax Handbook: Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Connecticut

Yes on paper, and almost never in practice — Connecticut ties its exemption to the FEDERAL basic exclusion amount and charges a flat twelve per cent above it. So no Connecticut estate owes state estate tax unless it also owes federal, and the threshold moves with the federal one rather than falling behind it as Hawaii's, Illinois's and Minnesota's do. Connecticut is also the only state Sahvelo has reviewed that taxes lifetime gifts, on the same combined return.^{Source: Connecticut DRS — Form CT-706/709 Line Instructions (Rev. 06/26): the estate and gift tax schedule (opens in a new tab)•}
Delaware

No, and the code shows it on its face: Title 30, Chapter 15 is now headings followed by repeal notes, all naming one act, effective 1 January 2018. Delaware had reinstated an estate tax in 2009 and then ended it again, which is why the chapter's history looks untidy and why the 2018 date is the operative one. There is no Delaware inheritance tax either.^{Source: Del. Code tit. 30, ch. 15 — estate tax, repealed in its entirety effective 1 January 2018 (opens in a new tab)•}
Florida

None, stated in terms: a federal change eliminated Florida's estate tax for people who died after 31 December 2004. Since 1 July 2023 the estate does not even file the affidavit saying no tax is due.^{Source 6}
Georgia

No, and the statute abolished the returns along with the tax: from 1 July 2014 there are no estate taxes levied by the state and no estate tax returns required by it. In practice the boundary is much older — the tax only ever applied to a death before 1 January 2005, because it was measured by the federal credit. Georgia has no inheritance tax either.^{Source: Georgia Department of Revenue — Estate Tax FAQ: O.C.G.A. §48-12-1, the pre-2005 boundary, and the waiver answer (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Hawaii

Yes, and Hawaii's exclusion is defined by a date rather than a number. The statute takes the federal exclusion as the Internal Revenue Code stood on 21 December 2017, as if the person died on 31 December 2017, and freezes it there — $5,490,000 as the department currently prints it. Nothing indexes it, so the distance from the federal figure widens every year without the legislature doing anything. Rates run from ten per cent to twenty.^{Source: HRS 236E-6 — applicable exclusion amounts, apportionment, and the presumption of Hawaii residency (opens in a new tab)•Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation — Instructions for Form M-6 (Rev. 2025), Hawaii Estate Tax Return (opens in a new tab)•Source: HRS 236E-8 — Hawaii estate tax imposed; rate schedule; credit for tax paid to another state (opens in a new tab)•}
Idaho

No, and the Tax Commission answers all three taxes people confuse in one sentence: no gift tax, no inheritance tax, and an estate tax that expired in 2004. Expired rather than repealed is the right word — the tax was measured by the federal credit for state death taxes and stopped producing anything when that credit was phased out.^{Source: Idaho State Tax Commission — Estates and Taxes: no gift tax, no inheritance tax, estate tax expired 2004 (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Illinois

Yes, and it is the reason Illinois needs its own answer. The exclusion is $4,000,000, set by a list of dates inside a definition rather than by a formula, unchanged since 2013 and not indexed to anything. It is a threshold rather than a deduction: an estate at the figure pays nothing, and an estate of five million dollars wholly in Illinois pays a six-figure sum while owing the Internal Revenue Service nothing at all.^{Source: 35 ILCS 405/2, 405/3, 405/6 — the state tax credit definition, imposition, and returns (opens in a new tab)•Source: Illinois Attorney General — Important Notice Regarding Illinois Estate Tax and Fact Sheet (opens in a new tab)•}
Indiana

No estate tax and no inheritance tax. The inheritance tax applied to deaths on or before 31 December 2012 and the legislature repealed it in 2013, so every death from 1 January 2013 onward is outside it.^{Source: Indiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax Information: the 2013 repeal and the 2023 end of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
Iowa

No, twice over, and the second repeal is recent enough that the date of death decides the answer. The estate tax has not applied to a death since 1 January 2005. The inheritance tax repealed itself by its own dated terms for deaths on or after 1 January 2025 — so an estate of somebody who died in 2024 is still inside a tax that no longer exists for anybody who dies now.^{Source: Iowa Code § 450.98 — inheritance tax repealed (opens in a new tab)•Source: Iowa Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Taxes: description, exemptions, liability and due date (opens in a new tab)•}
Kansas

No, and the repeal was written into the act itself: the estate tax law provided that on 1 January 2010 its own sections were repealed. The line is the date of death — the tax applies to deaths before 1 January 2010 and to none after.^{Source: Kansas Department of Revenue Notice 10-07 — Kansas estate tax repealed for deaths on or after 1 January 2010 (opens in a new tab)•}
Kentucky

No estate tax, and an inheritance tax, which is a different thing and reaches different people. An estate tax is charged on the estate as a whole; Kentucky's inheritance tax is charged on what each individual person receives, at a rate and with an exemption set by their relationship to the person who died.^{Source: KRS 140.070 — inheritance tax rates (opens in a new tab)•Source: KRS 140.080 — exemptions of inheritable interests (opens in a new tab)•}
Louisiana

No, twice, and the department shows its working. The inheritance tax was repealed by an act of 2008, with no receipts issued from 1 January 2012 regardless of when the person died. The estate transfer tax is still on the books and produces nothing: it is imposed only where a federal credit for state death taxes is allowed, and that credit was phased out for deaths after 31 December 2004 and later struck from the Internal Revenue Code outright.^{Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Transfer Taxes: the 2008 repeal, the §2011 chain, and the R.S. 47:2436 return (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Maine

Yes, and the exclusion moves every year rather than being indexed quietly: $7,160,000 for a death in 2026, against $7,000,000 in 2025 and $6,410,000 in 2023. Maine says in terms that it taxes the estate even where no federal estate tax is due. The figure is a floor rather than a cliff — an estate just above it pays eight per cent of the excess only — but what counts as the estate is wider than the family's version of it, because gifts made in the last year of life and Maine property held through an entity are both pulled back in.^{Source: Maine Revenue Services — Estate Tax (706ME): imposition, the 2026 exclusion and the rate schedule (opens in a new tab)•}
Maryland

Yes — and Maryland is the only state Sahvelo has reviewed that has both an estate tax and an inheritance tax at the same time. The estate tax exclusion is $5,000,000, unmoved since 2019 and not indexed, with the rate capped at sixteen per cent of the excess. It is also the only state estate tax Sahvelo has reviewed that a surviving spouse can inherit the unused part of, which is a benefit that has to be claimed rather than one that arrives.^{Source: Md. Code, Tax-General §7-309 — the Maryland estate tax exclusion, spousal portability and the agricultural carve-out (opens in a new tab)•Source: Maryland Register of Wills — Inheritance Tax: property subject, exemptions, rates and payment procedure (opens in a new tab)•}
Massachusetts

Yes, above $2,000,000 of gross estate plus adjusted taxable gifts — and the figure doubled for deaths on or after 1 January 2023, so any guide written before then says a million and is wrong by half. Since 2023 a credit of ninety-nine thousand six hundred dollars reduces the tax, so an estate just over the line may owe little or nothing while still having to file.^{Source: Massachusetts Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Guide (opens in a new tab)•}
Michigan

Not established — and Michigan is the one state in this comparison where that is the honest answer rather than a gap. The statute is on the books, unrepealed since 1993, and imposes a tax equal to the maximum allowable federal credit for state death taxes. The obvious move is to say that credit was repealed in 2014 so the tax is nothing, and the act itself blocks it: Michigan defines internal revenue code, for this tax, as the 1986 Code in effect on 1 January 1998 — when the credit was alive — with today's Code available only at the personal representative's option. Treasury has published nothing retiring the tax; its only live bulletin on the subject, from 1999, says the tax is imposed. What is established is what an executor does, and it comes from the probate court rather than the tax department.^{Source: MCL 205.232 — Michigan estate tax measured by the maximum allowable federal credit (opens in a new tab)•Source: MCL 205.256(g) — the Michigan estate tax act's definition of "internal revenue code" (opens in a new tab)•Source: Michigan Department of Treasury, Revenue Administrative Bulletin 1999-12 — Estate Tax Penalty and Waiver Provisions (opens in a new tab)•Source: Michigan SCAO form PC 591 (rev. 6/23) — Sworn Statement to Close Unsupervised Administration (opens in a new tab)•}
Minnesota

Yes, and the test is the GROSS estate — $3,000,000, measured before mortgages, debts and expenses come off. So a mortgaged house counts at its full value, and an estate that will clearly owe nothing can still be an estate that has to file. The figure has been level since 2020 and is not indexed, which moves families into the filing requirement every year without anybody legislating.^{Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Filing Requirement (Minnesota and federal thresholds by year of death) (opens in a new tab)•}
Mississippi

No estate tax return is required for a death from 1 January 2005, because the federal credit the requirement was built on was replaced with a deduction. Mississippi has no inheritance tax and no gift tax.^{Source: Mississippi Department of Revenue — Estate: general information on estate, inheritance and gift tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Missouri

No, and this is a state where the statute cannot be read alone. The imposing section is unrepealed and unamended since 1981, so the code looks like a live estate tax; the Department of Revenue resolves it, saying that because the IRS no longer allows a state death tax credit for deaths from 1 January 2005, no Missouri estate tax is imposed. Missouri has no inheritance tax.^{Source: Missouri Department of Revenue — Estate Tax: Missouri estate tax filings no longer required (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Montana

No inheritance tax — five of the ten parts of Montana's death-tax chapter are marked repealed, including the imposition, the rates, the exemptions and the treatment of nonresidents. An estate tax chapter survives and computes to nothing: the tax reaches only an estate that owes federal estate tax, its amount is the maximum federal credit for state death taxes, and the statute says out loud that its only purpose is to capture that credit without increasing anybody's total bill.^{Source: Mont. Code Ann. Title 72, Chapter 16 — parts index showing which death-tax parts are repealed (opens in a new tab)•Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-16-904 — estate tax imposed (opens in a new tab)•Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-16-905 — how the Montana estate tax is computed, and the purpose clause that limits it (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Nebraska

No estate tax — but an inheritance tax, which is a different thing and reaches far more families. It is charged per person on what each one receives, so the answer depends on who inherits rather than on how large the estate is. Close family pay one per cent above a hundred thousand dollars each; an aunt, uncle, niece or nephew related by blood or adoption pay eleven per cent above forty thousand each. Both figures were made more generous for deaths from 1 January 2023.^{Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2004 — inheritance tax rate and exemption for immediate relatives (opens in a new tab)•Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2005 — inheritance tax rate and exemption for remote relatives (opens in a new tab)•}
Nevada

Not abolished — dormant, and the distinction is the honest answer rather than a technicality. The chapter is unrepealed and imposes a tax measured by the maximum credit allowable against the federal estate tax for state death taxes, a credit that no longer exists. The Department's position is that no filing is required for a death from 1 January 2005 and will not be required until the federal death tax credit is reenacted.^{Source: Nevada Department of Taxation — Estate Tax FAQs: NRS 375A and the conditional suspension of filing (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
New Hampshire

No, three times over. The legacy and succession tax — a real inheritance tax charging beneficiaries by relationship — was repealed entirely for deaths from 1 January 2003, and so was the separate transfer tax on a nonresident's personal property. The estate tax chapter survives and is imposed only in a case where the federal credit for state death taxes is available on the federal return. It is not.^{Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 86 — taxation of legacies and successions, repealed effective 1 January 2003 (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 87 — taxation of transfers of certain estates: imposition, measure and the credit condition (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 89 — transfer tax on personal property of nonresident decedents, repealed effective 1 January 2003 (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
New Jersey

No — repealed in terms, for anyone who died on or after 1 January 2018, after being phased out in two steps from 2017. This is the state where that answer misleads most, because New Jersey levies an inheritance tax instead and the two are routinely confused.^{Source 9Source 10}
New Mexico

Not repealed, and it computes to nothing. The Estate Tax Act is live and the department publishes the filing requirement in the present tense; the amount is the federal credit for state death taxes, which no longer exists. New Mexico does not publish a sentence saying it has no estate tax, so Sahvelo states the mechanism and its consequence rather than putting a conclusion in the department's mouth. There is no New Mexico inheritance tax.^{Source: New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — Estate Tax: the Estate Tax Act, the filing requirement and the federal deadline (opens in a new tab)•Source: New Mexico Form RPD-41058 — Estate Tax Return and instructions (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
New York

Yes. A tax is imposed on the transfer of the New York estate of every individual who was a resident at death, and there is a separate regime for non-residents holding New York property.^{Source 5}
North Carolina

No — and it is a verified answer rather than a silence, because the statute books say so on their face. Article 1A of Chapter 105, Estate Taxes, consists of nothing but eight repeal notes, each recording that the section was repealed by Session Laws 2013-316 effective 1 January 2013 and applicable to the estates of decedents dying on or after that date. There is nothing left to compute, file or clear for a recent death. The federal estate tax is a separate system and is unaffected.^{Source: N.C.G.S. Chapter 105 Article 1A — Estate Taxes, repealed by S.L. 2013-316 for deaths on or after 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•}
North Dakota

No tax is paid, and the chapter is still live. North Dakota says no estate taxes are paid for deaths after 1 January 2005 because the federal credit its tax was measured by was phased out — the pick-up pattern, stated by the Tax Commissioner rather than inferred.^{Source: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner — Estate Tax: no tax due, Form 54-91 required at fifteen months (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Ohio

No, for anyone dying now — and this is a verified answer rather than an absence. The Ohio estate tax chapter is still in the Revised Code, but the sentence that levies the tax reaches only the estate of a person dying on or after 1 July 1968 and before 1 January 2013. A person dying today is outside the class the section taxes, not exempted by a threshold within it.^{Source: Ohio R.C. 5731.02 — rate of estate tax and credit, levied only on deaths before 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•}
Oklahoma

No, repealed effective 1 January 2010 by an act passed in a 2006 special session — which is why Oklahoma guidance from 2007 or 2008 correctly described a live tax. The statute book shows the wreckage: the estate tax article is repeal notes except for a credit-absorption section and a section limiting liens, and the gift tax code beside it is repealed in full.^{Source: Oklahoma Tax Commission — Administrative Rules Report (2020): the estate tax repeal date and the ten-year lien (opens in a new tab)•Source: Okla. Stat. tit. 68, Articles 8 and 9 — estate tax and gift tax code section index (Oklahoma Supreme Court Network) (opens in a new tab)•}
Oregon

Yes, and Oregon's threshold is the lowest of the states Sahvelo has reviewed: $1,000,000, unindexed. The next lowest of them, Rhode Island's, sits more than eight hundred thousand dollars above it. In 2026 that is often a paid-off house plus a retirement account, so a family that owes nothing federally can owe Oregon. It reaches a non-resident too, where the estate held Oregon real property or tangible personal property — a house in Oregon draws the return whether or not anybody lives there now.^{Source: Oregon Department of Revenue — estate transfer tax, Form OR-706 filing requirement (opens in a new tab)•}
Pennsylvania

No estate tax — but an inheritance tax, which is a different thing and catches far more families. An estate tax is charged on the estate and usually only above a large exemption. Pennsylvania's inheritance tax is charged on what each person receives, at a rate fixed by their relationship to the deceased, and for most recipients it starts at the first dollar.^{Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue — inheritance tax rates by class of recipient (opens in a new tab)•}
Rhode Island

Yes, and it is the second lowest of the states Sahvelo has reviewed, behind Oregon's flat million: $1,838,056 for a death in 2026, indexed annually from a base of a million and a half. Low enough that an ordinary Rhode Island household with a paid-off home, a retirement account and a life insurance policy can reach it, which is not true anywhere else. The test is on the gross estate, before mortgages and debts.^{Source: Rhode Island Division of Taxation — Estate Tax: thresholds by year of death, the statutory lien, Forms RI-706, T-77 and T-79 (opens in a new tab)•}
South Carolina

No, since 1 January 2005, and no inheritance tax either. What South Carolina does tax is the estate's own income, and the thresholds for that are low enough that ordinary estates meet them.^{Source: South Carolina Department of Revenue — Fiduciary: no estate tax since 2005, the SC1041 and nonresident-beneficiary withholding (opens in a new tab)•}
South Dakota

No, and this is the cleanest answer of the fifty. One act in 2014 repealed the inheritance tax chapter, the estate tax chapter and eighty-five sections of generation-skipping transfer tax, striking the charging sections first and the machinery second. The inheritance tax chapter now contains nothing but repeal notes.^{Source: S.D. Codified Laws ch. 10-40 — imposition and amount of inheritance tax, repealed in its entirety (opens in a new tab)•Source: S.D. Session Laws 2014, ch. 59 (HB 1057) — repeal of the inheritance tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Tennessee

No. The inheritance tax stopped being imposed after 31 December 2015, and despite its name it worked like an estate tax rather than like Pennsylvania's: it was measured on the net estate against an exemption for the year of death, not on each beneficiary's share by relationship. Tennessee has no estate tax either.^{Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: what it taxed, who paid it, and the 2015 end date (opens in a new tab)•}
Texas

No, and this one is settled rather than merely absent. Texas repealed its inheritance tax outright — the Act was headed “relating to the repeal of the inheritance tax” and repealed Chapter 211 of the Tax Code with effect from 1 September 2015. There is no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax.^{Source: Texas S.B. 752, 84th Legislature — repeal of the inheritance tax, enrolled text (opens in a new tab)•}
Utah

No. The Tax Commission keeps the page up with a preface saying the tax was repealed, and explains why: Utah's was a pick-up tax that collected the federal credit for state death taxes, and when federal changes eliminated that credit after 31 December 2004 there was no longer a basis for the Utah tax. The Inheritance Tax Act itself was formally repealed in 2026.^{Source: Utah State Tax Commission — Inheritance Tax: repealed, the pick-up mechanism, and no waiver required (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Vermont

Yes, above $5,000,000 — and the figure changed this year. Vermont used to have two numbers, a lower one at which a return had to be filed and a higher one at which tax was actually owed, so estates in between filed returns that produced nothing; legislation effective 18 June 2026 raised the filing threshold to meet the payment threshold. The tax reaches only the excess, and gifts made in the last two years of life are added in before the test is applied.^{Source: Vermont Department of Taxes — Estate and Fiduciary Taxes: the 2026 threshold, Form EST-191 and the Form E-2A probate clearance (opens in a new tab)•}
Virginia

No — and this is now the agency's answer, not an inference. Virginia Tax states in the present tense that Virginia no longer has an estate tax or an inheritance tax, and the Tax Commissioner has ruled that the chapter imposing it does not currently impose a tax, calling it obsolete and unenforceable and confirming it is not collected. The chapter has still not been repealed, which is why the question needed an agency answer at all: what happened in 2006 was that an uncodified enactment clause deleted a floor from the definition of federal credit, so the tax now tracks a federal credit that no longer exists. It applies to deaths on or after 1 July 2007. Virginia does still charge a probate tax, which is a different thing and is collected at the courthouse.^{Source: Virginia Tax — Estate and Inheritance Taxes (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Tax, Ruling of the Tax Commissioner, Public Document 15-93 (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Acts of Assembly, 2006 Special Session I, Chapter 5 (S.B. 5019), sixth enactment clause (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Tax — Probate Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Washington

Yes, and it is one of the heaviest. The exempt amount is three million dollars for a death on or after 1 July 2026 — but it was $3,076,000 for a death between 1 January and 30 June 2026, so a single day moves seventy-six thousand dollars into the taxable estate. From 2027 the figure is indexed to the Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton consumer price index rather than legislated.^{Source: RCW 83.100.020 — definitions, applicable exclusion amount (opens in a new tab)•}
West Virginia

No — and West Virginia is the only state Sahvelo has reviewed that answered this question in advance. The article imposing the tax says it remains in force until either the Legislature repeals it or the United States stops allowing a credit against its estate tax for state death taxes. The Legislature never repealed it. The credit ceased. The statute ended by its own terms.^{Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-39 — effectiveness of the estate tax article, and the condition that ends it (opens in a new tab)•Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-3 — imposition of the West Virginia estate tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Wisconsin

No, and two different taxes ended on two different dates: no estate tax for a death after 31 December 2007, and no inheritance tax for a death on or after 1 January 1992. The Department gives a separate phone number for each of the historic cases rather than leaving an old estate with a dead end.^{Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue — Estates, Trusts and Fiduciaries FAQ: the two repeal dates and income tax on inherited property (opens in a new tab)•}
Wyoming

Not repealed, and it computes to nothing. The statute imposes a tax on the transfer of every Wyoming gross estate, sets the amount as the maximum federal credit for state death taxes, and then says in both operative sections that the provisions are intended to capture that credit without increasing the total death tax on any estate. With no credit allowable there is nothing to capture, and the purpose clause bars reading the chapter as reaching further. Wyoming grants no exemptions of its own.^{Source: Wyo. Stat. §§39-19-103 to 39-19-105 — imposition, measure, purpose, exemptions and the duplicate-return duty (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}

Who the tax is charged to, if anyone

The question the estate-tax answer does not settle

The answer in 50 states

Alabama

Nobody, for the death. The estate itself can still owe Alabama income tax on income earned while it is being administered, and that is the fiduciary return rather than a death tax.^{Source: Alabama Department of Revenue news release — Alabama estate tax filings no longer required (deaths after 31 December 2004) (opens in a new tab)•Source: Alabama Department of Revenue — Alabama Fiduciary, Estate, and Inheritance Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Alaska

Nobody, at state level. What the Court System is careful to add, and it is the right caution, is that Alaska taking nothing does not mean nothing is owed: if the person lived in another state or owned property there, that state's estate tax and income tax follow its own rules.^{Source: Alaska Court System — Probate self-help, Federal Tax Matters: Alaska has no state estate tax and no state income tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Arizona

Nobody. Arizona taxes the income an estate earns during administration, not the transfer of what is left, and there is no tax on the person receiving.^{Source 7}
Arkansas

Nobody, for a tax on the estate itself. But an Arkansas estate can still owe tax on the INCOME it earns while it is open, which is a different tax and a live one: the Department reissues its fiduciary income tax return every year. Do not read the end of the estate tax as the end of Arkansas filing.^{Source: Act 645 of 2003, Arkansas 84th General Assembly (Senate Bill 60), amending Ark. Code 26-59-103 (opens in a new tab)•Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, fiduciary and estate income tax forms index (opens in a new tab)•}
California

Nobody. The Franchise Tax Board's estates and trusts regime is income tax on the decedent and on the estate. Nothing is charged to a beneficiary for receiving.^{Source 8}
Colorado

Nobody. The tax was on the estate rather than on anybody receiving — the handbook separates the two carefully, along with gift tax — and it produces nothing. There is no Colorado inheritance tax.^{Source: Colorado General Assembly, Legislative Council Staff — Online Tax Handbook: Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Connecticut

The estate, and there is no Connecticut inheritance tax. But the more useful answer for a Connecticut family is that almost nobody is charged anything, because the exemption is the federal one — and that this is not the same as having nothing to do.^{Source: Connecticut DRS — Form CT-706/709 Line Instructions (Rev. 06/26): the estate and gift tax schedule (opens in a new tab)•Source: Connecticut DRS — 2025 Form CT-706 NT Instructions: the nontaxable-estate return, the probate court and the six-month deadline (opens in a new tab)•}
Delaware

Nobody. The repeal removed the tax rather than exempting particular relatives, so no class of beneficiary pays and none is exempt, and there is no estate to assess. The federal estate tax is untouched and still reaches large Delaware estates exactly as it does everywhere else.^{Source: Del. Code tit. 30, ch. 15 — estate tax, repealed in its entirety effective 1 January 2018 (opens in a new tab)•Source: 26 U.S.C. §2011 — credit for State death taxes, repealed by Pub. L. 113-295 (2014) (opens in a new tab)•}
Florida

Nobody. Florida's estate tax died with the federal credit it was calculated against, and since 2023 the estate does not even file to say so.^{Source 6}
Georgia

Nobody. The Department is explicit that even when the tax existed it fell on the estate before distribution and not on the person inheriting, and that people who call it an inheritance tax are describing the same thing. On inheriting now: Georgia has no inheritance tax, and whether anything belongs in income is a question for the IRS.^{Source: Georgia Department of Revenue — Estate Tax FAQ: O.C.G.A. §48-12-1, the pre-2005 boundary, and the waiver answer (opens in a new tab)•}
Hawaii

The estate, not the beneficiary — Hawaii has no inheritance tax and no gift tax. A nonresident's estate is charged too, on Hawaii real property and on anything tangible sitting in the islands, so a mainland family with a condominium is inside the tax. Holding that condominium in a single-member LLC does not move it out: the statute disregards the company and treats the member as the owner.^{Source: HRS 236E-8 — Hawaii estate tax imposed; rate schedule; credit for tax paid to another state (opens in a new tab)•}
Idaho

Nobody, on any of the three. That is worth having in this form because gift tax, inheritance tax and estate tax get used interchangeably in ordinary speech and are different things — one falls on giving in life, one on the person receiving after a death, one on the estate itself — so a family told Idaho has no estate tax has not been told the other two.^{Source: Idaho State Tax Commission — Estates and Taxes: no gift tax, no inheritance tax, estate tax expired 2004 (opens in a new tab)•}
Illinois

The estate. Illinois taxes the transfer and computes on the estate as a whole; the estate representative prepares and files the return and the tax is paid out before anything reaches a beneficiary. Nothing in the calculation sorts beneficiaries by how they were related to the deceased, which is the opposite of the Pennsylvania model. What a surviving spouse gets is a marital deduction, and Illinois allows its own qualified terminable interest property election, made separately from the federal one on a timely filed return.^{Source: 35 ILCS 405/2, 405/3, 405/6 — the state tax credit definition, imposition, and returns (opens in a new tab)•Source: Illinois Attorney General — Important Notice Regarding Illinois Estate Tax and Fact Sheet (opens in a new tab)•}
Indiana

Nobody. The old tax fell on the person receiving, which is what an inheritance tax does, and it no longer reaches any current death. The Department of Revenue states flatly that there is no inheritance tax owed in Indiana.^{Source: Indiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax Information: the 2013 repeal and the 2023 end of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
Iowa

Nobody, for a death from 1 January 2025. For the deaths still inside the old tax, it fell on the person receiving rather than on the estate, and the exemption list covered most of the families it could have reached: a surviving spouse, the person's lineal ascendants and descendants and stepchildren were all exempt.^{Source: Iowa Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Taxes: description, exemptions, liability and due date (opens in a new tab)•Source: Iowa Code § 450.98 — inheritance tax repealed (opens in a new tab)•}
Kansas

Nobody. The old tax was on the estate and the Department of Revenue states that no tax is or will be due from estates of people who died after 2009. Kansas has no inheritance tax.^{Source: Kansas Department of Revenue Notice 10-07 — Kansas estate tax repealed for deaths on or after 1 January 2010 (opens in a new tab)•}
Kentucky

The recipient, and the class they fall into decides everything. Class A — a parent, a surviving spouse, a child by blood or adopted, a stepchild, a grandchild who is the issue of a child by blood, a brother or sister including of the half blood, and, for a death on or after the first of January 2026, a nephew or niece including of the half blood — is exempt on the total inheritable interest, which is the whole thing rather than a threshold. Class B is now much narrower: a daughter-in-law, son-in-law, aunt or uncle, or a great-grandchild in the lines the statute names. Class C is everybody else. Note the disagreement Sahvelo does not resolve: the Department of Revenue's published guide still describes a niece or nephew as Class B, and for a death on or after the first of January 2026 the statute does not.^{Source: KRS 140.070 — inheritance tax rates (opens in a new tab)•Source: KRS 140.080 — exemptions of inheritable interests (opens in a new tab)•}
Louisiana

Nobody, on either tax. The estate transfer tax was never meant to cost an estate anything — the department says its purpose was to shift payment from the federal government to the state rather than to add a burden — so when the federal credit went, there was nothing left to shift. Louisiana is also the one state whose statute puts the filing duty on the heirs or legatees rather than on a personal representative, which follows its civil-law succession rather than the common-law estate the rest of the country administers.^{Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Transfer Taxes: the 2008 repeal, the §2011 chain, and the R.S. 47:2436 return (opens in a new tab)•}
Maine

The estate, on the value of the Maine taxable estate. No Maine beneficiary is taxed on receiving and no relationship changes the answer. A nonresident is inside it too, if they owned Maine real or tangible personal property, and the filing test for a nonresident uses the whole federal gross estate rather than just the Maine part.^{Source: Maine Revenue Services — Estate Tax (706ME): imposition, the 2026 exclusion and the rate schedule (opens in a new tab)•Source: Maine Revenue Services — Estate Tax FAQ: the filing test, the automatic lien and its discharge (opens in a new tab)•}
Maryland

Both, differently, by two different offices. The estate tax falls on the transfer and is the Comptroller's. The inheritance tax falls on the person receiving and is the Register of Wills', county by county — but the whole direct line is exempt from it: spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, stepchildren, siblings, the spouse of a child, and since October 2023 a registered domestic partner. Everybody else pays ten per cent, including nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Where there is a will, a tax clause usually makes the estate pay rather than the person inheriting; where there is no will, the heir pays it themselves.^{Source: Maryland Register of Wills — Inheritance Tax: property subject, exemptions, rates and payment procedure (opens in a new tab)•Source: Md. Code, Tax-General §7-309 — the Maryland estate tax exclusion, spousal portability and the agricultural carve-out (opens in a new tab)•}
Massachusetts

The estate. The tax is computed in a way no other state in this comparison uses: from the federal credit for state death taxes as it stood in the Internal Revenue Code on 31 December 2000 — a credit the federal government no longer allows. The Department states that federal changes after that date have no impact on the Massachusetts calculation, so the state tax is frozen to a repealed federal provision.^{Source: Massachusetts Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Guide (opens in a new tab)•}
Michigan

The estate, for deaths from 1 October 1993 onwards — the tax is on the transfer of the estate, so nothing turns on who inherits. For a death on or before 30 September 1993 the answer is different in kind: the old Michigan inheritance tax still applies to those estates, is charged on the right to receive, and varies with the beneficiary. Treasury still runs an Inheritance Tax Section for them, and the probate court's closing form still requires a certificate of no inheritance tax liability where the death was that long ago. This matters for the estate nobody ever administered.^{Source: MCL 205.223 — which sections of the Michigan act apply, by date of death (opens in a new tab)•Source: Michigan Department of Treasury — Inheritance Tax Frequently Asked Questions (opens in a new tab)•}
Minnesota

The estate, on its Minnesota assets. Nobody inheriting is charged and no relationship changes the answer — Minnesota has no inheritance tax. What the department does name is a person: the executor or personal representative is responsible for filing and for paying, which is why distributing everything before the return is settled is a personal risk rather than an administrative one.^{Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Estate Tax: what it applies to and who is responsible (opens in a new tab)•Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Filing Requirement (Minnesota and federal thresholds by year of death) (opens in a new tab)•}
Mississippi

Nobody. Mississippi states plainly that it has no inheritance tax, so nobody receiving is charged and no relationship changes the answer.^{Source: Mississippi Department of Revenue — Estate: general information on estate, inheritance and gift tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Missouri

Nobody. The tax was on the transfer of the estate rather than on anybody receiving, and it produces nothing for any current death.^{Source: Missouri Department of Revenue — Estate Tax: Missouri estate tax filings no longer required (opens in a new tab)•}
Montana

Nobody. The surviving tax is on the estate rather than on anybody receiving, and it is conditioned twice over — the estate must be subject to the federal estate tax, and part of it must have a taxable situs in Montana. Sahvelo has not found a Montana Department of Revenue statement that no estate tax is due, so the honest form of the answer is that the statute computes to nothing rather than that the department has said so.^{Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-16-904 — estate tax imposed (opens in a new tab)•Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-16-905 — how the Montana estate tax is computed, and the purpose clause that limits it (opens in a new tab)•}
Nebraska

The people receiving, each on their own share. A surviving spouse pays nothing on anything. Anybody under twenty-two pays nothing, whatever they inherit — so a grandchild of nineteen with half a million dollars pays nothing and the same grandchild at twenty-three pays. The homestead allowance, exempt property and the family maintenance allowance are all outside the tax. Somebody the person stood in the acknowledged relation of a parent to for ten years is treated as a child.^{Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2004 — inheritance tax rate and exemption for immediate relatives (opens in a new tab)•Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2005 — inheritance tax rate and exemption for remote relatives (opens in a new tab)•}
Nevada

Nobody, for a death now. Nevada's tax is on the estate rather than on anybody receiving, and it currently produces nothing. For a death on or before 31 December 2004 the position is the opposite: Nevada says filing was required for any decedent with Nevada property whose estate reached the level requiring a federal estate tax return.^{Source: Nevada Department of Taxation — Estate Tax FAQs: NRS 375A and the conditional suspension of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
New Hampshire

Nobody. The niece, nephew, friend or unmarried partner who would pay in Pennsylvania, Kentucky or Nebraska pays nothing here, because the chapter that charged them by relationship is gone. New Hampshire also does not reach a nonresident's personal property, which the other states with a death tax reviewed here do.^{Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 86 — taxation of legacies and successions, repealed effective 1 January 2003 (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 89 — transfer tax on personal property of nonresident decedents, repealed effective 1 January 2003 (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 87 — taxation of transfers of certain estates: imposition, measure and the credit condition (opens in a new tab)•}
New Jersey

Each person who receives, at a rate set by how they were related. A parent, spouse, child, grandchild or stepchild pays nothing at all. A brother, sister, or a child's spouse pays eleven per cent above the first $25,000, rising in bands above that. Anyone else — a niece, a nephew, a friend, an unmarried partner who is not a registered domestic or civil union partner — pays fifteen per cent from the first dollar, with no exemption at the bottom. Where the beneficiary lives is not a factor; where the person who died lived is.^{Source 10Source 11Source 12}
New Mexico

The estate, in form — the personal representative files and the tax is on the transfer of the net estate, or for a nonresident on the net estate located in New Mexico. In substance nobody pays, because the figure the return asks for is a federal credit that is no longer allowed.^{Source: New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — Estate Tax: the Estate Tax Act, the filing requirement and the federal deadline (opens in a new tab)•Source: New Mexico Form RPD-41058 — Estate Tax Return and instructions (opens in a new tab)•}
New York

The estate, on its size, and only above the exclusion. Nothing is charged to a beneficiary for receiving.^{Source 5}
North Carolina

Nobody, on either model. An inheritance tax is charged to the recipient and varies with the relationship — the Pennsylvania model — and North Carolina repealed its inheritance tax for deaths from 1 January 1999. An estate tax is charged on the estate as a whole, and North Carolina repealed that for deaths from 1 January 2013. So neither of the two questions a family gets asked has a North Carolina answer for a recent death: nothing turns on who inherits, and nothing turns on the size of the estate.^{Source: N.C.G.S. Chapter 105 Article 1 — Inheritance Tax, repealed by S.L. 1998-212 for deaths on or after 1 January 1999 (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.C.G.S. Chapter 105 Article 1A — Estate Taxes, repealed by S.L. 2013-316 for deaths on or after 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•}
North Dakota

Nobody, at state level. The tax was on the estate rather than on anybody receiving, and it produces nothing. There is no North Dakota inheritance tax.^{Source: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner — Estate Tax: no tax due, Form 54-91 required at fifteen months (opens in a new tab)•}
Ohio

Nobody, for a death on or after 1 January 2013. Where the chapter did apply, it taxed the transfer of the taxable estate of a resident decedent — the estate, not the recipient, so nothing ever turned on how a beneficiary was related. For an estate still open from a death before that date the rates began at two per cent on the first forty thousand dollars of taxable estate and reached seven per cent above five hundred thousand, against a credit that for deaths from 2002 onwards was the lesser of thirteen thousand nine hundred dollars or the tax.^{Source: Ohio R.C. 5731.02 — rate of estate tax and credit, levied only on deaths before 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•}
Oklahoma

Nobody. The old tax was on the estate and it no longer reaches any death from 2010. Oklahoma has no inheritance tax and no gift tax.^{Source: Okla. Stat. tit. 68, Articles 8 and 9 — estate tax and gift tax code section index (Oklahoma Supreme Court Network) (opens in a new tab)•Source: Oklahoma Tax Commission — Administrative Rules Report (2020): the estate tax repeal date and the ten-year lien (opens in a new tab)•}
Oregon

The estate, not the beneficiary, and the duty to file is drawn unusually widely. The Department names the personal representative, executor, administrator, fiduciary, custodian of estate assets, and — the one to check against yourself — any person who has actual or constructive possession of estate assets.^{Source: Oregon Department of Revenue — estate transfer tax, Form OR-706 filing requirement (opens in a new tab)•}
Pennsylvania

The recipient, and the rate depends entirely on who they are: nothing to a surviving spouse, or to a parent taking from a child aged 21 or younger; 4.5 percent to direct descendants and lineal heirs; 12 percent to siblings; 15 percent to everyone else, apart from charities, exempt institutions and exempt government bodies. Property owned jointly between spouses is exempt. The 15 percent band is wider than its name suggests — a niece, a nephew, a friend, an unmarried partner and a stepchild who was never adopted are all in it.^{Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue — inheritance tax rates by class of recipient (opens in a new tab)•}
Rhode Island

The estate. It is a transfer tax on the value of the estate before anything is distributed, so no beneficiary is charged and no relationship matters. A nonresident is inside it for Rhode Island property, real or personal, with actual situs in the state.^{Source: Rhode Island Division of Taxation — Estate Tax: thresholds by year of death, the statutory lien, Forms RI-706, T-77 and T-79 (opens in a new tab)•}
South Carolina

Nobody for the death. For income during administration the fiduciary is responsible for the estate's return, and a nonresident beneficiary is reached through withholding rather than through a bill: the estate withholds South Carolina tax out of what it distributes to them.^{Source: South Carolina Department of Revenue — Fiduciary: no estate tax since 2005, the SC1041 and nonresident-beneficiary withholding (opens in a new tab)•}
South Dakota

Nobody, on any of the three taxes. No statute survives to be interpreted — no residual section conditioned on a federal credit, no dormant imposition waiting for Congress, no lien provision left standing. That distinguishes South Dakota from about a dozen states where a live statute computes to zero.^{Source: S.D. Session Laws 2014, ch. 59 (HB 1057) — repeal of the inheritance tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: S.D. Codified Laws ch. 10-40 — imposition and amount of inheritance tax, repealed in its entirety (opens in a new tab)•}
Tennessee

Nobody now, and for the deaths still inside the old tax it was the estate rather than the beneficiaries: the Department says it was paid out of the estate by the executor, administrator or trustee. No Tennessee beneficiary was ever billed for it personally.^{Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: what it taxed, who paid it, and the 2015 end date (opens in a new tab)•}
Texas

Nobody, at state level. The repeal removed the tax rather than exempting particular relatives, so there is no class of beneficiary who pays and none who is exempt. The federal estate tax is untouched by any of this and still reaches large estates in Texas exactly as it does everywhere else.^{Source: Texas S.B. 752, 84th Legislature — repeal of the inheritance tax, enrolled text (opens in a new tab)•}
Utah

Nobody. Despite the statute being called an Inheritance Tax Act, the Commission describes the same thing as an estate tax system — it never charged beneficiaries by relationship, it collected a federal credit. Note that loose usage, because searching for one term will not reliably find the other.^{Source: Utah State Tax Commission — Inheritance Tax: repealed, the pick-up mechanism, and no waiver required (opens in a new tab)•}
Vermont

The estate, on the transfer of a Vermont estate. Vermont has no inheritance tax. What counts as Vermont property is defined from opposite directions depending on residence: a Vermont resident's everything except real or tangible property outside the state, and a nonresident's Vermont real and tangible property only, with intangibles excluded. So a Vermont resident's brokerage account is Vermont property wherever the broker sits.^{Source: Vermont Department of Taxes — Estate and Fiduciary Taxes: the 2026 threshold, Form EST-191 and the Form E-2A probate clearance (opens in a new tab)•}
Virginia

Nobody, for the estate tax. For the probate tax that does exist, the person seeking to be appointed — and they pay it before they are appointed, so it comes out of their own pocket and is recovered from the estate afterwards. The tax follows the probate estate rather than the household: property passing by survivorship, by beneficiary designation, by a transfer on death deed or by contract is outside the count, and for a nonresident so is intangible personal property wherever it sits.^{Source: Va. Code § 58.1-1712, § 58.1-1715 — the probate tax and payment as a prerequisite to qualification (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Tax — Probate Tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Form CC-1651, Probate Tax Return, instructions (Office of the Executive Secretary, Supreme Court of Virginia) (opens in a new tab)•}
Washington

The estate, not the beneficiary. The tax is imposed on the transfer of property located in Washington, and a resident's intangible property — bank accounts, brokerage accounts, shares — counts as located here wherever the institution sits. Where some property is outside Washington the tax is apportioned by the fraction of the gross estate that Washington property represents.^{Source: RCW 83.100.040 — estate tax imposed, rate tables by date of death (opens in a new tab)•}
West Virginia

Nobody. The tax was on the estate and was conditioned twice over: there had to be a federal estate tax payable at all, and the amount was the federal credit rather than a West Virginia rate — the imposing section states no percentage anywhere. West Virginia also undertook in the statute never to cost an estate more in total than the federal tax alone would have.^{Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-3 — imposition of the West Virginia estate tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-39 — effectiveness of the estate tax article, and the condition that ends it (opens in a new tab)•}
Wisconsin

Nobody for the death. What can reach a Wisconsin family is income tax, and it reaches the person who inherited rather than the estate once the money has been distributed: the Department's rule is that income before distribution belongs to the estate and income after belongs to the beneficiary, who learns their share on a Schedule K-1.^{Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue — Estates, Trusts and Fiduciaries FAQ: the two repeal dates and income tax on inherited property (opens in a new tab)•}
Wyoming

Nobody. The tax is on the transfer of the estate and the duty sits on the personal representative; there is no Wyoming inheritance tax and no charge on anybody receiving. Unpaid tax would become a debt to the state that the attorney general could sue for, which is worth knowing only for its shape: the exposure was always the representative's, not the beneficiaries'.^{Source: Wyo. Stat. §§39-19-103 to 39-19-105 — imposition, measure, purpose, exemptions and the duplicate-return duty (opens in a new tab)•}

The thing that catches people

Usually procedural, and usually not the tax

The answer in 50 states

Alabama

Being asked for one of three documents that no longer exist. Alabama used to require an estate tax return, an Affidavit of Estate Tax, and an Estate Tax Waiver, and the Department names all three as no longer required for a death after 31 December 2004 — worth knowing because a bank or a probate clerk may ask for any of them by name. One caution about the source: the Department's news release on this, from 2005, also forecasts that the federal estate tax would be eliminated by 2009 and reinstated in 2011. That is what the law then said and it is not what happened.^{Source: Alabama Department of Revenue news release — Alabama estate tax filings no longer required (deaths after 31 December 2004) (opens in a new tab)•}
Alaska

The same page that answers Alaska correctly is a decade and more out of date about the FEDERAL estate tax — it puts the threshold at 'usually at least $1 million' and the top rate at up to fifty-five per cent, neither of which has been true since 2001. The wider lesson matters more than Alaska: a government page can be the best source for its own jurisdiction and unreliable about somebody else's, and the two have to be separated rather than trusted or discarded together.^{Source: Alaska Court System — Probate self-help, Federal Tax Matters: Alaska has no state estate tax and no state income tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Arizona

The filing threshold is low and it is an income threshold, not a wealth one. A Certificate of Taxes can be requested once the estate's Arizona taxable income for the year reaches $1,000 — or gross income reaches $5,000, whatever the taxable income.^{Source 7}
Arkansas

The trap is on the Department's own forms page, and it catches people in both directions. AR321, the estate tax form, is still listed there dated 11/18/2009, so a family can find and start a form for a tax that stopped applying to deaths on or after 1 January 2005. On the same page the fiduciary income tax return AR1002F carries a February 2026 date, and that is the one an estate with income actually needs. A form's presence on a state website is not evidence that the tax exists, and its absence would not be evidence that the tax is gone.^{Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, fiduciary and estate income tax forms index (opens in a new tab)•}
California

The opposite of a trap, and almost nobody uses it: a fiduciary may request an 18-month statute of limitations instead of the normal four years, on the decedent's return, an estate return or a trust return.^{Source 8}
Colorado

Treating it as abolished. The handbook says the tax may be collected again if federal law restores the credit, so this is a dormant tax rather than a dead one. It also makes a point worth carrying: eliminating the credit saved nobody money, it only shifted the revenue from Colorado to the federal government. For a death on or before 31 December 2004, Form DR 1210 must still be filed.^{Source: Colorado General Assembly, Legislative Council Staff — Online Tax Handbook: Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Connecticut

The filing, not the tax — and of the states Sahvelo has reviewed it is the sharpest trap of its kind. An estate that owes nothing must still file Form CT-706 NT, it goes to the PROBATE COURT rather than to the revenue department, and it is due within SIX months of death rather than the nine a family will have heard. Posting it is not enough: the instructions say the postmark date is not determinative and the court must physically receive it. Omitting that filing is what actually holds up a Connecticut estate.^{Source: Connecticut DRS — 2025 Form CT-706 NT Instructions: the nontaxable-estate return, the probate court and the six-month deadline (opens in a new tab)•}
Delaware

The lien went with the tax, which is the opposite of the trap in Maine and Rhode Island and worth saying out loud because families are warned about death tax liens generally. The section that created a special lien for estate taxes on Delaware property was repealed by the same act, so there is no estate tax lien to clear before a Delaware house can be sold. The real trap is in the chapter's own history: two earlier repeals in the same chapter, from 1999 and 1991, mean a search for Delaware estate tax turns up three separate endings that are not the same event.^{Source: Del. Code tit. 30, ch. 15 — estate tax, repealed in its entirety effective 1 January 2018 (opens in a new tab)•}
Florida

That the absence is genuinely an absence. Executors still file the affidavit that was abolished in 2023, or hold up a closing waiting for a clearance the state no longer issues.^{Source 6}
Georgia

The brokerage that wants a waiver. Transfer agents routinely refuse to move a dead person's stock without a state tax waiver 'if required by the state', and a family with no way to answer stalls at that sentence. Georgia's answer is published: Georgia has no inheritance or estate tax waiver requirements. A smaller trap is in the Department's own page, which gives two different 2014 dates for the repeal — Sahvelo does not resolve the discrepancy, and both are long past.^{Source: Georgia Department of Revenue — Estate Tax FAQ: O.C.G.A. §48-12-1, the pre-2005 boundary, and the waiver answer (opens in a new tab)•}
Hawaii

The gap, which is the department's own word for it. The federal figure and Hawaii's frozen one are printed side by side in the instructions, and the space between them is more than eight million dollars of estate the IRS will not tax and Hawaii will. An estate inside it has no federal return to file and a Hawaii one to prepare, so it has to build a federal Form 706 that is never sent anywhere. A second trap decides who has to argue: every decedent with Hawaii property is presumed to have died a Hawaii resident, and the burden of disproving it sits on the estate.^{Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation — Instructions for Form M-6 (Rev. 2025), Hawaii Estate Tax Return (opens in a new tab)•Source: HRS 236E-6 — applicable exclusion amounts, apportionment, and the presumption of Hawaii residency (opens in a new tab)•}
Idaho

An old estate. The Commission keeps a phone route open for deaths before 1 January 2005 rather than publishing a rule, which means an unadministered estate from the 1990s — usually attached to a house nobody transferred — has a phone number and not a page. The Commission also says plainly that where its guidance conflicts with current tax law, the law governs, which is the honest posture for any general guidance including this one.^{Source: Idaho State Tax Commission — Estates and Taxes: no gift tax, no inheritance tax, estate tax expired 2004 (opens in a new tab)•}
Illinois

Portability. Federal law lets a widow or widower carry over their spouse's unused federal exclusion without doing anything, and the Attorney General states in terms that it is inapplicable to the Illinois tax. A couple who left everything to each other outright because an adviser said portability would handle it have thrown away the first spouse's Illinois exclusion entirely. The Illinois answer is its own election on a timely filed return — which only exists if somebody files one. The second trap is quieter: the estate has to file whether or not the IRS wants anything, so a family told they are comfortably under the estate tax limit has almost certainly been told about the federal one.^{Source: Illinois Attorney General — Important Notice Regarding Illinois Estate Tax and Fact Sheet (opens in a new tab)•Source: 35 ILCS 405/2, 405/3, 405/6 — the state tax credit definition, imposition, and returns (opens in a new tab)•}
Indiana

The door is shut on the paperwork as well as the tax, which cuts both ways. No Indiana inheritance tax return may be prepared or filed for any decedent, resident or nonresident, after 5 October 2023, and the Department has retired the forms. So an executor of a very old Indiana estate cannot file even voluntarily and cannot obtain a clearance that no longer exists — an Indiana title problem from a pre-2013 death is not solved by paying a tax. And a form found online is a retired document.^{Source: Indiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax Information: the 2013 repeal and the 2023 end of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
Iowa

For a pre-2025 death, the executor can be liable personally. The department lists administrators, executors, referees and trustees among those who may be liable for the tax, which means an Iowa executor who distributes a taxable share before settling has a problem the beneficiaries no longer have the money to fix. The clock is nine months from death. For a death in 2025 or later none of this applies, and the difference between the two is one midnight.^{Source: Iowa Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Taxes: description, exemptions, liability and due date (opens in a new tab)•}
Kansas

Filing to be safe, which Kansas will not let you do. The Department says that because no Kansas estate tax law applies to these estates it will not process estate tax returns filed for them — so a cautious executor's return is not a belt-and-braces measure, it simply goes nowhere. The other direction matters for an old estate: the Department says the law in effect for deaths before 1 January 2010 continues to apply until it sunsets.^{Source: Kansas Department of Revenue Notice 10-07 — Kansas estate tax repealed for deaths on or after 1 January 2010 (opens in a new tab)•}
Kentucky

The document that closes an exempt estate goes to the court, and expressly not to the Department of Revenue. Where everything taxable passes to Class A, the Department wants nothing: an Affidavit of Exemption is accepted by the court for final settlement, no no-tax-due return is filed, and the page says in terms not to send the Department a copy of the affidavit. A second trap is a clock nothing announces. The return is due at eighteen months, but paying at nine earns five per cent off, so the cheapest moment to settle arrives nine months before the last moment to file.^{Source: Kentucky Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: filing, deadlines, the discount and the Affidavit of Exemption (opens in a new tab)•}
Louisiana

Reading 'no tax' as 'no return'. The statute requiring an estate transfer tax return is restated by the department in the present tense, and it bites at a net estate of sixty thousand dollars — a small Louisiana succession, not a wealthy one. The department publishes both that sentence and the sentence saying no tax is due, and does not reconcile them. Sahvelo does not reconcile them either: an executor near that figure should ask the department rather than assume.^{Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Transfer Taxes: the 2008 repeal, the §2011 chain, and the R.S. 47:2436 return (opens in a new tab)•}
Maine

A lien on the house from the moment of death, whether or not a penny is owed. Maine estate tax law places it automatically on Maine real and tangible personal property, so the estate least likely to be talking to Revenue Services is the one most likely to be ambushed at a closing. Clearing it takes a Statement of Value, a Certificate of Discharge signed by the State Tax Assessor, and a trip to the county Registry of Deeds to record the release — a certificate in a folder at home does not clear a title.^{Source: Maine Revenue Services — Estate Tax FAQ: the filing test, the automatic lien and its discharge (opens in a new tab)•}
Maryland

Avoiding probate does not avoid the inheritance tax. Property passing by survivorship, by beneficiary designation or by contract is taxed on receipt exactly as probate property is, so a payable-on-death account left to a niece is taxed and so is a jointly held house — and the Register invoices the beneficiary directly, with a ten per cent penalty at thirty days and the file going to the Central Collection Unit at ninety. The estate-tax trap runs the other way and is quieter: a first spouse's estate far too small to owe anything may still have needed to file a Maryland return on time, purely to preserve the unused exclusion, and that cannot be repaired later.^{Source: Maryland Register of Wills — Inheritance Tax: property subject, exemptions, rates and payment procedure (opens in a new tab)•Source: Md. Code, Tax-General §7-309 — the Maryland estate tax exclusion, spousal portability and the agricultural carve-out (opens in a new tab)•}
Massachusetts

Two, and they pull in opposite directions. A pre-2023 source will give a one-million-dollar threshold. And the credit that makes the tax small just above two million does not make the return optional: filing is triggered by the gross estate, not by whether anything is owed. The extension is the third: six months to file is automatic, but only if at least eighty per cent of the tax finally determined to be due was already paid within nine months of the death.^{Source: Massachusetts Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Guide (opens in a new tab)•}
Michigan

Being told confidently that Michigan has no estate tax. No Michigan authority says so. Treasury's only published bulletin on it says the tax is imposed and has never been replaced; Treasury has simply stopped mentioning the tax anywhere else — no page, no form, no line in its own revenue tables. Silence is not a repeal. The reasoning usually offered for the confident answer also fails on the statute's own definitions, because the act points by default at the 1986 Code as it stood in 1998, when the federal credit existed. The practical position is nonetheless comfortable for an ordinary estate, and it is worth knowing exactly why: the return is only owed where a federal estate tax return is required, and almost none are.^{Source: Michigan Department of Treasury, Revenue Administrative Bulletin 1999-12 — Estate Tax Penalty and Waiver Provisions (opens in a new tab)•Source: MCL 205.256(g) — the Michigan estate tax act's definition of "internal revenue code" (opens in a new tab)•Source: MCL 205.235 — filing the Michigan estate tax return, and the department's waiver power (opens in a new tab)•}
Minnesota

The deduction that saves the family farm or business keeps the estate open for three more years. Claiming it binds the heirs to hold the property and to keep materially participating in the business; selling it, or stepping away from it, brings the tax back at a flat sixteen per cent — and the heirs, not the estate, have six months from the change to file and pay. The clock starts on a day the family may not recognize as significant.^{Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Recapture Tax on qualified small business and farm property (opens in a new tab)•}
Mississippi

Nothing in the department's answer, and one thing about the sources. Mississippi's own statute chapters sit with a commercial publisher rather than on a Mississippi host, so the chapter text has not been read here — what is established is the department's statement of what it requires, which for a present-day death is nothing. Note too that the apportionment act the department lists beside the estate tax is not a tax: it allocates a death tax among beneficiaries and would operate on the federal estate tax as readily as on a state one.^{Source: Mississippi Department of Revenue — Estate: general information on estate, inheritance and gift tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Missouri

Reading the statute and stopping. Anybody who looks up Missouri's estate tax law finds a tax imposed in the present tense and no repeal, and would be wrong to conclude there is one — and equally wrong to conclude the question is closed, because the Department says that if the IRS ever reinstates the credit a Missouri return will be required again. Dormant rather than dead, in the department's own words.^{Source: Missouri Department of Revenue — Estate Tax: Missouri estate tax filings no longer required (opens in a new tab)•}
Montana

A guide written before 2025. Montana used to require a Department of Revenue certificate showing taxes paid before an estate could be closed, and that section was repealed in 2025 after fifty years on the books. A personal representative working from an older checklist will look for a document that no longer exists, fail to find a process for getting one, and conclude something has gone wrong. Nothing has: the step was removed.^{Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-3-1006 — repealed 2025: the tax certificate formerly required to close an estate (opens in a new tab)•}
Nebraska

There is no state form to find, and that absence is not evidence the tax does not exist. Nebraska's inheritance tax is determined by the county court, not settled with a state revenue department, so searching a state site for a return produces nothing. Where there is no probate at all — everything joint, everything with a beneficiary — the tax still has to be determined, in a proceeding opened for that purpose alone, and the county attorney can open it.^{Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2018.01 — proceedings for determination of the Nebraska inheritance tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Nevada

Treating a dormant statute as a repealed one. The practical answer for a family administering an estate today is identical to a repeal — nothing to file, nothing to pay — but the difference matters in two real situations. An estate of somebody who died in 2004 or earlier is squarely inside the tax and Nevada says so. And anybody planning on the basis that Nevada can never tax an estate is relying on Congress rather than on Nevada.^{Source: Nevada Department of Taxation — Estate Tax FAQs: NRS 375A and the conditional suspension of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
New Hampshire

A chapter that still reads like a tax. Chapter 87 is printed in the statute book and imposes an estate tax in the present tense, so anybody reading the code alone finds one. The condition that empties it is in the fourth subsection rather than the first, which puts New Hampshire with West Virginia — a statute that said what should happen when the federal credit went — rather than with Michigan, whose statute did not.^{Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 87 — taxation of transfers of certain estates: imposition, measure and the credit condition (opens in a new tab)•}
New Jersey

Who is named, not how much there is. Two people inheriting identical amounts from the same estate can owe completely different tax, decided entirely by their relationship. A stepchild is Class A and pays nothing; a step-grandchild is not, and pays fifteen per cent. A beneficiary designation naming a sibling rather than a child carries a tax consequence that no amount of estate-size planning reaches.^{Source 11Source 12}
New Mexico

A return that is required and produces nothing. If a federal estate tax return has to be filed, the personal representative must file a New Mexico return too, with a copy of the federal one attached, on the federal deadline including extensions. An estate that reads 'New Mexico takes nothing' and files nothing has missed a live obligation. The form proves the arithmetic on its face: line 2 asks for the federal credit, and every later line is derived from it.^{Source: New Mexico Form RPD-41058 — Estate Tax Return and instructions (opens in a new tab)•Source: New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — Estate Tax: the Estate Tax Act, the filing requirement and the federal deadline (opens in a new tab)•}
New York

The cliff. The credit that spares smaller estates is denied entirely once the taxable estate exceeds the basic exclusion amount by more than five per cent — so an estate just over the line loses the whole credit rather than paying tax on the excess.^{Source 5}
North Carolina

The paperwork outlived the taxes, and it is embedded in the administration statutes rather than in the tax ones. The section fixing the deadline for the final account still measures it partly from the date of receiving a State estate or inheritance tax release — a document that no longer exists for a recent death. And the certification that no return was required now carries its own limit, applying only to estates of people who died before 1 January 2013. A representative of a recent estate is not chasing a release and is not making that certification; anyone telling them otherwise is working from a form printed before 2013. The second trap is the mirror image: both repeals run by date of death, so an estate still open from a death before 2013 is inside the old estate tax, and one from before 1999 inside the old inheritance tax.^{Source: N.C.G.S. Chapter 105 Article 1A — Estate Taxes, repealed by S.L. 2013-316 for deaths on or after 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.C.G.S. 28A-21-1 to 28A-21-4, 28A-23-3 — annual and final accounts, and commissions allowed a personal representative (opens in a new tab)•}
North Dakota

A return with no tax attached, due at fifteen months. Every estate required to file a federal estate tax return must also file North Dakota's Form 54-91, and fifteen months is longer than any other state deadline Sahvelo has read — most are nine. A deadline with no money attached is the kind an executor discovers after it has passed. It reaches only estates above the federal filing threshold, but for those it is not optional.^{Source: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner — Estate Tax: no tax due, Form 54-91 required at fifteen months (opens in a new tab)•}
Ohio

The paperwork outlived the tax. The chapter was not deleted from the Revised Code, and other sections still refer to an Ohio estate tax release — the section on paying a dead employee's wages is one. A family handed a form asking for a release, or told by an institution that one is needed, is looking at machinery with no tax behind it for a recent death. The second trap is the mirror image: the repeal runs by date of death, so an estate that has been sitting unadministered since before 2013 is still inside the tax, and the rates it faces start almost immediately by modern standards.^{Source: Ohio R.C. 5731.02 — rate of estate tax and credit, levied only on deaths before 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•}
Oklahoma

The lien outlived the tax by ten years. Oklahoma's estate tax lien stayed on all property of the gross estate for ten years from the death unless somebody obtained an order from the Tax Commission releasing or exempting the estate — so for a death in 2009, the last year the tax applied, the lien ran until 2019. That is why the Commission could say its estate rules were necessary through tax year 2019 and were then scheduled for revocation. In every case the ten-year clock has now run out.^{Source: Oklahoma Tax Commission — Administrative Rules Report (2020): the estate tax repeal date and the ten-year lien (opens in a new tab)•}
Oregon

The deadline moved and old guidance is still circulating. For a death before 1 January 2022 the return and payment were due nine months after the death; for a death on or after that date it is twelve months. A six-month extension to file exists, and the Department says plainly that it does not extend the time to pay. The other trap runs the other way: where estimated payments were made and the estate turns out to be under a million, a return is still filed — as a request for a refund.^{Source: Oregon Department of Revenue — estate transfer tax, Form OR-706 filing requirement (opens in a new tab)•}
Pennsylvania

Three, and the first one attaches to the house. Pennsylvania inheritance tax is a lien on inherited real property from the moment of death — automatic, never filed, never recorded, and invisible to a title search. Selling the house does not clear it. What clears it is filing the return, having the property appraised and the tax assessed, and paying; there is a statutory shortcut for a sale by a fiduciary, but it only reaches an executor who posted a bond, and Pennsylvania wills routinely waive bond. Second: waiting for the deadline. The tax is legally due at the death and delinquent 9 months later, but paying within three months earns 5 percent off the tax paid or the tax due, whichever is less. Third: the joint account. Putting a parent's name on your own savings account for convenience makes half of it taxable when they die — the department says the split is by head count, not by who put the money in, and that joint property is taxable "even in situations where the decedent's name was added as a matter of convenience". Worse if it was recent: a joint interest created within a year of the death is taxable at its full value, less $3,000.^{Source: Tax Reform Code of 1971, Act 2, sections 2167, 2168, 2169 — the inheritance tax lien on the decedent's real property, its duration, and the twenty-year cutoff for purchasers (opens in a new tab)•Source: Tax Reform Code of 1971, Act 2, sections 2170, 2171, 2175 — how the inheritance tax lien on a decedent's real property is discharged, and the bond condition that excludes most executors (opens in a new tab)•Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue — when inheritance tax is due, delinquent, and discounted (opens in a new tab)•Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue REV-584 — joint property, the convenience account, and the one-year rule (opens in a new tab)•}
Rhode Island

A statutory lien on land and on Rhode Island securities that does not lift until a return is filed — so the estate that owes nothing still files, which is the opposite of what people assume. The Division says so in terms: a non-taxable estate files to get the lien discharged and to get a Notice of No Tax Due for the probate court. The discharge is a separate form, in triplicate for real property and in duplicate for securities, and it goes in with the return.^{Source: Rhode Island Division of Taxation — Estate Tax: thresholds by year of death, the statutory lien, Forms RI-706, T-77 and T-79 (opens in a new tab)•}
South Carolina

A child who moved away. An estate files an income return if it has a nonresident beneficiary at all, or six hundred dollars of gross income — a few months of interest. And on distribution the estate must withhold at South Carolina's TOP marginal rate, not the beneficiary's, so an executor who sends a sibling in another state their full share has under-remitted and the Department looks to the fiduciary for it. The way out is the beneficiary's to take: they can file an affidavit accepting South Carolina jurisdiction, which the Department says is not an admission of liability.^{Source: South Carolina Department of Revenue — Fiduciary: no estate tax since 2005, the SC1041 and nonresident-beneficiary withholding (opens in a new tab)•}
South Dakota

Only an out-of-date source. There is nothing here to misread, so the risk is entirely in the age of what a family is reading: South Dakota voters ended the inheritance tax at the start of the century and the legislature cleared the statute books in 2014.^{Source: S.D. Codified Laws ch. 10-40 — imposition and amount of inheritance tax, repealed in its entirety (opens in a new tab)•Source: S.D. Session Laws 2014, ch. 59 (HB 1057) — repeal of the inheritance tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Tennessee

Filing anyway. The Department asks in capital letters that nothing be filed for a death in 2016 or later, which is worth passing on because the reflex when a tax is uncertain is to file to be safe — and here that creates work for everybody and settles nothing.^{Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: what it taxed, who paid it, and the 2015 end date (opens in a new tab)•}
Texas

Reading “no inheritance tax” as “no tax”. The repeal was of one state tax. The federal estate tax still applies to large estates, and income tax still falls on money withdrawn from an inherited retirement account — a different tax on a different event, and the one that actually reaches ordinary Texas families. Something in the other direction is worth knowing too: since 1 September 2025 a vehicle passing from an estate to an heir carries no Texas motor vehicle tax, and none is due even where the car had a lien on it at the death.^{Source: Texas S.B. 752, 84th Legislature — repeal of the inheritance tax, enrolled text (opens in a new tab)•Source: Texas Comptroller Motor Vehicle Tax Guide — inherited motor vehicles (opens in a new tab)•}
Utah

A broker or a bank asking for a tax waiver. Their standard form usually says 'if required by the state', and a family with no way to answer that stalls. Utah's answer is published and flat: Utah does not require an inheritance tax waiver. That is the page to point at.^{Source: Utah State Tax Commission — Inheritance Tax: repealed, the pick-up mechanism, and no waiver required (opens in a new tab)•}
Vermont

Two years of gifts, and a clearance the probate court will not close the estate without. The threshold test adds federal adjusted taxable gifts made within two years of death, which is longer than Maine's one year — a gift made to reduce an estate can still be inside it. And every Vermont estate in probate has business with the tax department whether or not any tax was owed, because the court requires a clearance from the Department of Taxes before it will close.^{Source: Vermont Department of Taxes — Estate and Fiduciary Taxes: the 2026 threshold, Form EST-191 and the Form E-2A probate clearance (opens in a new tab)•}
Virginia

Being told Virginia has no death tax and then being asked for money at the counter. Virginia Tax publishes the estate tax answer and the probate tax on separate pages that do not cross-reference each other, and the court's own probate tax return has to open by saying the probate tax is not an inheritance tax or an estate tax. Two smaller traps sit inside it. The threshold is a cliff rather than an allowance: over fifteen thousand dollars the whole value is charged including the first fifteen thousand, so an estate of $15,500 pays $15.50 and an estate of $15,000 pays nothing. And the form itself is inconsistent — its cover sheet says the return is needed above ten thousand dollars while its face and instructions say fifteen thousand. Fifteen thousand is the statutory figure.^{Source: Virginia Tax — Probate Tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Form CC-1651, Probate Tax Return, instructions (Office of the Executive Secretary, Supreme Court of Virginia) (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Tax — Estate and Inheritance Taxes (opens in a new tab)•}
Washington

The rate table changed twice in thirteen months and the current one is not the one in the news. Deaths in the twelve months from 1 July 2025 were taxed on a scale reaching thirty-five per cent; deaths on or after 1 July 2026 are back on the pre-2025 scale, topping out at twenty per cent above nine million. An estate advised from a 2025 article is being advised from a superseded table.^{Source: RCW 83.100.040 — estate tax imposed, rate tables by date of death (opens in a new tab)•}
West Virginia

The article is still printed in the West Virginia Code, so anybody reading the code alone finds a live estate tax and reasonably concludes there is one — a title examiner or a lender may ask about it. The reason it can be answered with more confidence than Michigan, Missouri or Nevada is the expiry clause: those statutes merely measure a tax BY the federal credit and say nothing about what happens when it stops, while West Virginia said what should happen and it has happened.^{Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-39 — effectiveness of the estate tax article, and the condition that ends it (opens in a new tab)•Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-3 — imposition of the West Virginia estate tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Wisconsin

An inherited retirement account. The Department's own answer is that an inheritance is generally not taxable income because the deceased already paid income tax on the money — and then lists the exceptions, which are where ordinary families actually get taxed: individual retirement accounts, dividends on inherited stock, interest on inherited accounts, and land contract installments received after the death. An inherited IRA is the case that catches people, because nothing was taxed on the way in and everything is taxable on the way out, so the money looks like an inheritance and behaves like income.^{Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue — Estates, Trusts and Fiduciaries FAQ: the two repeal dates and income tax on inherited property (opens in a new tab)•}
Wyoming

A live sentence in a live statute. The personal representative of an estate partly constituting Wyoming gross estate must file with the department a duplicate of ALL federal estate tax returns and notices — and that duty is not conditioned on any tax being due. It reaches only estates that file federally, which is very few, but it is not obsolete text. Sahvelo has found no Wyoming Department of Revenue page stating the position on this tax at all, so the answer here is read from the statute rather than from the agency.^{Source: Wyo. Stat. §§39-19-103 to 39-19-105 — imposition, measure, purpose, exemptions and the duplicate-return duty (opens in a new tab)•}

What closing out with the state looks like

Which office, which form, and by when — including where no tax is due

The answer in 50 states

Alabama

Nothing with the Department for the death. What remains is the estate's own income tax return, and Alabama has e-filing mandates for it that catch larger estates and anybody using a preparer: an estate or trust with twenty or more beneficiaries must e-file, and so must every fiduciary return from a preparer who does twenty-five or more of them. Sahvelo has not read the threshold or the deadline for that return.^{Source: Alabama Department of Revenue — Alabama Fiduciary, Estate, and Inheritance Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Alaska

Nothing with the State of Alaska arising from the death. The federal work is unchanged: a final individual return for the person who died, overdue income taxes and any IRS liens cleared before property is transferred to beneficiaries, and an employer identification number obtained for the estate.^{Source: Alaska Court System — Probate self-help, Federal Tax Matters: Alaska has no state estate tax and no state income tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Arizona

A Certificate of Payment of Taxes, requested with the court's notice of informal appointment, a signed Form 210 notice of assumption of fiduciary duties, and the final Form 141AZ fiduciary return — with returns up to date or a notarized affidavit explaining the gaps.^{Source 7}
Arkansas

There is nothing to close out with Arkansas for an estate tax, on the authority Sahvelo has read. What may remain is the fiduciary income tax return where the estate earned income, filed on AR1002F, or AR1002NR for a non-resident estate, with AR1002V as the payment voucher; those three are the current forms on the Department's index. The federal return is unaffected and is covered above. Sahvelo has not read Arkansas guidance on closing out an estate more generally and asserts none.^{Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, fiduciary and estate income tax forms index (opens in a new tab)•}
California

File the returns, then send a written prompt-assessment request naming R&TC §19517 and the tax years, with a copy of the return, to the board's Estates and Trusts Audit Unit. Eighteen months later the window is shut.^{Source 8}
Colorado

Nothing with the Department of Revenue for any death after 2004. For an earlier death, Form DR 1210. Colorado's last estate tax receipts, in the 2013-14 fiscal year, came from exactly those estates.^{Source: Colorado General Assembly, Legislative Council Staff — Online Tax Handbook: Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Connecticut

Form CT-706 NT with the probate court for the district where the person lived — or, for a nonresident, where the Connecticut property is — within six months of the death, with a death certificate, a recorded deed for any Connecticut real property, any federal Forms 706 and 709, and asset schedules attached. An estate over the exemption that need not file federally builds a pro forma federal return, clearly marked as such. Only a taxable estate files anything with the revenue department, and then a copy goes to the probate court as well.^{Source: Connecticut DRS — 2025 Form CT-706 NT Instructions: the nontaxable-estate return, the probate court and the six-month deadline (opens in a new tab)•Source: Connecticut DRS — Form CT-706/709 Line Instructions (Rev. 06/26): the estate and gift tax schedule (opens in a new tab)•}
Delaware

Nothing with the Division of Revenue arising from the death itself — no return, no lien discharge, no clearance. What the repeal does not touch is income the estate earns while it is being administered, which is a different tax in a different title and which Sahvelo has not read for Delaware.^{Source: Del. Code tit. 30, ch. 15 — estate tax, repealed in its entirety effective 1 January 2018 (opens in a new tab)•}
Florida

Nothing to obtain from the state on the estate tax. The federal position and the estate's own income tax returns are the whole of it.^{Source 6}
Georgia

Nothing, by statute — no return is required by the state. For the pre-2005 estates the tax could still reach, there was never a Georgia form: a copy of the federal return went in with the payment, on the federal nine-month deadline, and no Georgia filing was needed at all if no federal return was required.^{Source: Georgia Department of Revenue — Estate Tax FAQ: O.C.G.A. §48-12-1, the pre-2005 boundary, and the waiver answer (opens in a new tab)•}
Hawaii

Form M-6, filed by the personal representative. An estate below the frozen figure files nothing — unless the surviving spouse wants the unused exclusion, which requires a timely return even with no tax due. An estate that files nothing and wants certainty asks for a Request for Release on Form M-6A. And nothing can be finalized until the federal numbers are, because Hawaii takes its values as finally determined for federal transfer tax purposes even where no federal tax is owed.^{Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation — Instructions for Form M-6 (Rev. 2025), Hawaii Estate Tax Return (opens in a new tab)•Source: HRS 236E-8 — Hawaii estate tax imposed; rate schedule; credit for tax paid to another state (opens in a new tab)•}
Idaho

Nothing with the Tax Commission for the death itself. What this does not settle is whether an Idaho estate must file an income tax return for income earned during administration: that is a separate Idaho tax, and Sahvelo has not read it. Do not treat this row as saying nothing is owed.^{Source: Idaho State Tax Commission — Estates and Taxes: no gift tax, no inheritance tax, estate tax expired 2004 (opens in a new tab)•}
Illinois

Three offices, which is the part that goes wrong. The return is Form 700 and the original goes to the Illinois Attorney General's Revenue Litigation Bureau, Estate Tax Section — Chicago for Cook, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties, Springfield for everywhere else — by mail, courier or hand delivery. The money does not go with it: taxes, interest and penalties are paid directly to the Illinois State Treasurer on the Treasurer's own payment form. Everything is due nine months after the death. Extensions are available on application, Illinois recognizes federal extensions, and the request belongs inside the nine months. Note that the Attorney General publishes a separate fact sheet for each year of death and keeps the old ones posted, so an older death is governed by the sheet for its own year.^{Source: Illinois Attorney General — Important Notice Regarding Illinois Estate Tax and Fact Sheet (opens in a new tab)•}
Indiana

Nothing with the Department of Revenue arising from the death, and nothing that can be filed even if somebody wanted to. The Department has also said it will not pursue tax on asbestos settlement claims after 5 October 2023, including where such a settlement is part of a deceased person's estate. What an Indiana estate owes on income earned during administration is a different tax and is not read here.^{Source: Indiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax Information: the 2013 repeal and the 2023 end of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
Iowa

Nothing with the Department of Revenue for a current death — no inheritance tax return, no estate tax return, no clearance. For a pre-2025 death with a taxable share, the return and the payment were due by the last day of the ninth month after death, and the money was state general-fund money rather than county money.^{Source: Iowa Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Taxes: description, exemptions, liability and due date (opens in a new tab)•Source: Iowa Code § 450.98 — inheritance tax repealed (opens in a new tab)•}
Kansas

Nothing filed with the Department of Revenue for any death from 1 January 2010. For a death before that date the old law still governs and the Department is the place to ask. The notice Kansas publishes on this is a 2010 document carrying that year's officials, which is a reason to confirm nothing has replaced it rather than to discount it.^{Source: Kansas Department of Revenue Notice 10-07 — Kansas estate tax repealed for deaths on or after 1 January 2010 (opens in a new tab)•}
Kentucky

Usually nothing, and that is the point. A return is owed only where some part of the estate passes to a taxable beneficiary; otherwise the affidavit closes the administration at the court. Where a return is owed it goes to the Department's Financial Tax Section in Frankfort within eighteen months of death, and waiting on the IRS is not an excuse to be late. A liability over five thousand dollars can be paid in ten annual installments, with interest running from eighteen months.^{Source: Kentucky Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: filing, deadlines, the discount and the Affidavit of Exemption (opens in a new tab)•}
Louisiana

Nothing to compute and possibly something to file. No inheritance tax receipt is issued at all any more, and no estate transfer tax is due for a death after 2004. What remains open is the return the statute still requires above sixty thousand dollars of net estate, which the department restates without saying whether it survives the tax. Ask before filing nothing.^{Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue — Inheritance and Estate Transfer Taxes: the 2008 repeal, the §2011 chain, and the R.S. 47:2436 return (opens in a new tab)•}
Maine

Nine months, on the Maine Tax Portal, which lets an estate file without registering for one. An estate over the threshold files Form 706ME; an estate under it that owned Maine real or tangible property still files a Statement of Value — Form 700-SOV — to get the lien released. The automatic extension is to file and never to pay. The probate court may separately want Revenue Services' letters certifying that the return was filed and the tax paid, so an executor can be asked for the same clearance twice by two different offices.^{Source: Maine Revenue Services — Estate Tax FAQ: the filing test, the automatic lien and its discharge (opens in a new tab)•}
Maryland

Two closings, on two clocks. The inheritance tax on probate property is paid with the Administration Account filed with the Register of Wills that shows the distribution; the tax on non-probate property is paid against an invoice the Register issues after the Information Report. The estate tax, where there is one, is the Comptroller's and is due within nine months. A farm inherited with the agricultural carve-out is not finished for ten years: selling it or stopping farming inside that window brings back the tax that was never paid.^{Source: Maryland Register of Wills — Inheritance Tax: property subject, exemptions, rates and payment procedure (opens in a new tab)•Source: Md. Code, Tax-General §7-309 — the Maryland estate tax exclusion, spousal portability and the agricultural carve-out (opens in a new tab)•}
Massachusetts

Form M-706, the Massachusetts Estate Tax Return, due with payment nine months after the death.^{Source: Massachusetts Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Guide (opens in a new tab)•}
Michigan

With the probate court, not with Treasury. On the sworn statement that closes an unsupervised administration the representative checks one of three boxes, and for a death from 1 October 1993 onwards the box reads that no Michigan estate tax is due — requiring no certificate and no evidence from Treasury, unlike the boxes on either side of it. The chain behind that box is worth understanding rather than just ticking: no federal estate tax return required, therefore no Michigan return required under the filing section, therefore nothing owed and nothing to obtain. Where a federal return IS required, the Michigan return is due on the federal date and the representative is personally liable for filing and paying it — and Treasury has an express statutory power to waive the requirement which it has never publicly exercised.^{Source: Michigan SCAO form PC 591 (rev. 6/23) — Sworn Statement to Close Unsupervised Administration (opens in a new tab)•Source: MCL 205.235 — filing the Michigan estate tax return, and the department's waiver power (opens in a new tab)•Source: Michigan Department of Treasury, Revenue Administrative Bulletin 1999-12 — Estate Tax Penalty and Waiver Provisions (opens in a new tab)•}
Minnesota

Form M706 and the payment at nine months. The six-month extension is automatic and covers filing only, so an illiquid estate that extends still owes interest from month nine — and because the threshold is a gross-estate test, illiquid estates are exactly the ones most likely to need the time. The department publishes a month-of-death table rather than making an executor count.^{Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Due Dates and Extensions (opens in a new tab)•Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue — Estate Tax Filing Requirement (Minnesota and federal thresholds by year of death) (opens in a new tab)•}
Mississippi

Nothing with the Department of Revenue arising from the death.^{Source: Mississippi Department of Revenue — Estate: general information on estate, inheritance and gift tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Missouri

Nothing. No estate tax return must be filed for a death on or after 1 January 2005 — the Department's page is titled for exactly that.^{Source: Missouri Department of Revenue — Estate Tax: Missouri estate tax filings no longer required (opens in a new tab)•}
Montana

Nothing with the Department of Revenue for the death itself, and — since 2025 — no tax certificate needed to close the estate either. What Sahvelo has read is the repeal, not what the 2025 act put in its place, so the current closing procedure should be taken from Montana's probate code as it now stands rather than from this row.^{Source: Mont. Code Ann. 72-3-1006 — repealed 2025: the tax certificate formerly required to close an estate (opens in a new tab)•Source: Mont. Code Ann. Title 72, Chapter 16 — parts index showing which death-tax parts are repealed (opens in a new tab)•}
Nebraska

In the county court, either inside the probate proceeding already running under Nebraska's probate code or in a separate proceeding brought only to fix the tax. Four people can start it: the court itself, the personal representative, the county attorney, or anybody with a legal interest in the property — which includes a beneficiary who wants their own liability settled rather than left open. Where an executor physically goes is county business, and Sahvelo does not yet carry Nebraska county detail.^{Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2018.01 — proceedings for determination of the Nebraska inheritance tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Nevada

Nothing filed with the Department of Taxation for a death from 1 January 2005. An estate near the pre-2005 boundary, or one that wants something it can rely on rather than a web page, can request a written advisory opinion from the Department — the Department says its FAQs are general guidance only.^{Source: Nevada Department of Taxation — Estate Tax FAQs: NRS 375A and the conditional suspension of filing (opens in a new tab)•}
New Hampshire

Nothing with the Department of Revenue Administration arising from the death. Where the chapter 87 tax ever did apply, payment tracked the federal clock rather than a separate state one. A death before 1 January 2003 is a different question: both repeals run from that date and say nothing about earlier deaths.^{Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 87 — taxation of transfers of certain estates: imposition, measure and the credit condition (opens in a new tab)•Source: N.H. Rev. Stat. ch. 86 — taxation of legacies and successions, repealed effective 1 January 2003 (opens in a new tab)•}
New Jersey

A tax waiver, Form 0-1, issued by the Inheritance Tax Branch — written consent to release the assets the lien is sitting on. It is not a form the family can fill in; a return or form goes to the Division first. For financial assets going to close family, Form L-8 is a self-executing substitute filed directly with the bank or brokerage instead.^{Source 13Source 14}
New Mexico

For most estates, nothing — no federal return, no New Mexico return. For an estate that files federally: Form RPD-41058 with a copy of the federal return, nine months from death plus any federal extension, sent to the department in Santa Fe. The form asks for the county where the estate is located and a court petition number, so it is designed to sit beside a probate proceeding. It also has a line for an art acceptance credit, because New Mexico will take works of art against this tax.^{Source: New Mexico Form RPD-41058 — Estate Tax Return and instructions (opens in a new tab)•Source: New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — Estate Tax: the Estate Tax Act, the filing requirement and the federal deadline (opens in a new tab)•}
New York

A New York estate tax return where the estate is at or above the filing requirement, on the state's own timetable rather than the federal one — worth confirming early, because it can be due before anyone expects it.^{Source 5}
North Carolina

Not with a tax authority — with the clerk of superior court. The estate is accounted for annually while it is open, and closed by a final account for settlement, due within a year of qualifying unless the clerk extends it. Every payment must be vouched or verified, and the clerk reviews, audits and records the account. If it does not come, the clerk can order a full satisfactory account within twenty days of service, on their own motion or at a creditor's request. The commission comes out at the same point and is not self-assessed: up to five per cent on receipts and expenditures, fixed in the clerk's discretion.^{Source: N.C.G.S. 28A-21-1 to 28A-21-4, 28A-23-3 — annual and final accounts, and commissions allowed a personal representative (opens in a new tab)•}
North Dakota

Nothing for an ordinary estate. For an estate that files a federal return: Form 54-91 within fifteen months, with a copy of the federal Form 706, the will if there is one, any farm real estate appraisal, and a supplemental agricultural property form covering farm or ranch land. An affidavit locating the North Dakota real and personal property is required only if tax is actually due there.^{Source: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner — Estate Tax: no tax due, Form 54-91 required at fifteen months (opens in a new tab)•}
Ohio

Under this chapter, nothing — for a death on or after 1 January 2013 there is no Ohio estate tax to compute, file or clear. Sahvelo has not established whether Ohio requires any other state filing on a death, and asserts nothing either way; the federal position is separate and unaffected. What does have to be closed out is the estate itself, and the deadline that governs that is the creditor bar rather than a tax: claims are barred 6 months after the death, which is what makes an Ohio administration finishable.^{Source: Ohio R.C. 5731.02 — rate of estate tax and credit, levied only on deaths before 1 January 2013 (opens in a new tab)•Source: Ohio R.C. 2117.06 — presentation of creditor claims and the six-month bar (opens in a new tab)•}
Oklahoma

Nothing with the Tax Commission for any death from 1 January 2010, and no lien arising from one. Fifty-one administrative rules governing estates were retired as outdated. For the rare estate of somebody who died in 2009 or earlier whose land has never been sold, the lien question is now time-expired rather than open.^{Source: Oklahoma Tax Commission — Administrative Rules Report (2020): the estate tax repeal date and the ten-year lien (opens in a new tab)•Source: Okla. Stat. tit. 68, Articles 8 and 9 — estate tax and gift tax code section index (Oklahoma Supreme Court Network) (opens in a new tab)•}
Oregon

Form OR-706, the Oregon Estate Transfer Tax Return for the year of death, filed with the Department of Revenue within twelve months, with Form OR-706 EXT for a six-month filing extension only.^{Source: Oregon Department of Revenue — estate transfer tax, Form OR-706 filing requirement (opens in a new tab)•}
Pennsylvania

A return within nine months, filed in duplicate with the Register of Wills of the county where the person lived — not with the Department of Revenue, which is where most people would send it. It is filed by the personal representative or the administrator approved by the Register of Wills. If nobody was appointed, the duty does not disappear: the people who received the property must file and pay. Debts the person owed before death are deductible, and so are administration costs, funeral and burial expenses, attorney and fiduciary fees, and the burial lot, tombstone or grave marker. A non-resident who owned Pennsylvania assets files with the register of the county where the assets are if letters were obtained there, and directly with the department if letters came from outside Pennsylvania. Where real estate is involved there is one more step worth taking rather than assuming: once the tax on that property is paid on its undiminished value, the department must, on request of a party in interest, issue a certificate releasing the property from the tax lien — and that certificate is conclusive evidence of the release for a buyer or a lender. Nobody sends it to you unasked.^{Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue REV-584 — who files the inheritance tax return, where, and what is deductible (opens in a new tab)•Source: Pennsylvania Department of Revenue — when inheritance tax is due, delinquent, and discounted (opens in a new tab)•Source: Tax Reform Code of 1971, Act 2, sections 2170, 2171, 2175 — how the inheritance tax lien on a decedent's real property is discharged, and the bond condition that excludes most executors (opens in a new tab)•}
Rhode Island

Form RI-706 at nine months, taxable or not, for every death from 1 January 2015 — with Form T-77 for land and Form T-79 for securities to clear the lien. Being late is expensive: twelve per cent a year in interest plus half a per cent a month in penalty to a maximum of a quarter of the tax, all running from the due date whether or not an extension was granted. One thing got cheaper — the fifty-dollar statutory filing fee ended for deaths from 1 January 2025.^{Source: Rhode Island Division of Taxation — Estate Tax: thresholds by year of death, the statutory lien, Forms RI-706, T-77 and T-79 (opens in a new tab)•}
South Carolina

Form SC1041 by the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the estate's tax year ends, with an extension of up to five and a half months available by paying the balance due online — and no extension of time to pay. Residence is fixed at death: a resident estate is one whose decedent was domiciled in South Carolina when they died, and it does not follow the executor.^{Source: South Carolina Department of Revenue — Fiduciary: no estate tax since 2005, the SC1041 and nonresident-beneficiary withholding (opens in a new tab)•}
South Dakota

Nothing at state level, for the death or for any generation-skipping transfer. A South Dakota family has no death tax question to answer.^{Source: S.D. Session Laws 2014, ch. 59 (HB 1057) — repeal of the inheritance tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: S.D. Codified Laws ch. 10-40 — imposition and amount of inheritance tax, repealed in its entirety (opens in a new tab)•}
Tennessee

Nothing with the Department of Revenue arising from the death, for a death from 2016 onward. What this does not settle is income earned during administration: Tennessee's tax structure is unusual enough — it taxed investment income under a separate tax until that was phased out — that the answer should be read rather than assumed, and Sahvelo has not read it.^{Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue — Inheritance Tax: what it taxed, who paid it, and the 2015 end date (opens in a new tab)•}
Texas

Not established. Sahvelo has not verified what closing out an estate with the Texas Comptroller involves — whether a fiduciary return is required, and whether any clearance or certificate exists of the kind other states issue. It does not assert that nothing is required. Ask the Comptroller before assuming either way.^{Source: Texas S.B. 752, 84th Legislature — repeal of the inheritance tax, enrolled text (opens in a new tab)•}
Utah

Nothing. Utah inheritance tax returns do not need to be filed and no waiver is required. The Commission adds its standard caution that the site is general guidance and does not contain all tax laws or rules.^{Source: Utah State Tax Commission — Inheritance Tax: repealed, the pick-up mechanism, and no waiver required (opens in a new tab)•}
Vermont

Form EST-191 where the threshold or a federal return requires it, with a six-month extension available on Form EST-195. Then the step that actually ends it: Form E-2A, the application for tax clearance, because the probate court requires the Department's clearance to close the estate. Separately, a person who received Vermont income in the year of death needs a part-year Form IN-111 filed for them, and a refund owed to them is claimed on Vermont Form 176 or the federal Form 1310.^{Source: Vermont Department of Taxes — Estate and Fiduciary Taxes: the 2026 threshold, Form EST-191 and the Form E-2A probate clearance (opens in a new tab)•Source 2}
Virginia

Nothing with Virginia Tax for a present-day estate — no estate tax and no inheritance tax to compute, file or clear. What is owed is owed at the start rather than the end: the probate tax return, the state tax and any local tax are filed and paid with the circuit court for the locality where the person lived, at the moment the will is presented or the grant of administration is sought, and nobody may qualify as executor or administrator until it is paid. Valuation is forgiving — the clerk will accept a reasonable estimate of personal property and the assessed value for real estate — so this does not require an appraisal. If too much is paid, the court cannot refund it: the application goes to the Department of Taxation, and nothing under twenty-five dollars is refunded at all.^{Source: Virginia Tax — Probate Tax (opens in a new tab)•Source: Va. Code § 58.1-1712, § 58.1-1715 — the probate tax and payment as a prerequisite to qualification (opens in a new tab)•Source: Virginia Form CC-1651, Probate Tax Return, instructions (Office of the Executive Secretary, Supreme Court of Virginia) (opens in a new tab)•}
Washington

A return is due on the GROSS estate, so an estate that owes no tax can still have to file: the test is whether the gross estate equals or exceeds the exclusion, before debts and expenses. The deadline is the federal one — and where no federal return is required, the date one would have been due, so a Washington executor works out a hypothetical federal deadline to meet a state one.^{Source: RCW 83.100.050 — filing the Washington estate tax return (opens in a new tab)•}
West Virginia

Nothing, and that includes the lien. The estate tax lien section sits inside the same article, so it goes when the article goes rather than needing a separate discharge. What an estate owes West Virginia on income earned during administration is a different tax and is not read here.^{Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-39 — effectiveness of the estate tax article, and the condition that ends it (opens in a new tab)•Source: W.Va. Code §11-11-3 — imposition of the West Virginia estate tax (opens in a new tab)•}
Wisconsin

Nothing with the Department arising from the death for any current death. What an executor has to get right is the line between the estate's income and the beneficiary's: income the assets earn before distribution is taxable to the estate, and a beneficiary receiving taxable income out of the estate should get a Schedule K-1 telling them what to report and where.^{Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue — Estates, Trusts and Fiduciaries FAQ: the two repeal dates and income tax on inherited property (opens in a new tab)•}
Wyoming

Nothing for an ordinary estate. For an estate filing a federal Form 706 with Wyoming property, the statute still calls for a duplicate of the federal return to be filed with the Wyoming Department of Revenue — and because no Wyoming agency publishes a position on this chapter, such an estate should ask the department rather than assume the requirement is dead letter.^{Source: Wyo. Stat. §§39-19-103 to 39-19-105 — imposition, measure, purpose, exemptions and the duplicate-return duty (opens in a new tab)•}

Sahvelo has read all fifty states at their own sources for this. Each answer below cites what it rests on, and a state whose rule has moved since it was read says so beside the answer. Where a state is recorded as having no estate tax, that is the department's own affirmative statement, its published estate procedure, or the repealing or self-terminating section of its own code — never an inference from the absence of a page.

Questions people ask about this

Do I pay income tax on what I inherit?

Generally no. An inheritance is not income to the person receiving it for federal income tax purposes. What is taxable is income the inherited asset produces afterwards, and withdrawals from an inherited retirement account, which are taxed as income when taken.
Who signs the final return?

The personal representative, and a surviving spouse as well where a joint return is filed. If nobody has been appointed, the person filing signs as the one in charge of the decedent's property, which the IRS's own definition contemplates.^{Source 4}
The final return shows tax owed and the estate has no money.

The tax is a debt of the estate and takes its place among the estate's obligations. It is not automatically a personal debt of the executor or the family — but a personal representative who distributes assets and leaves federal tax unpaid can be held responsible for it, which is a specific and well-known exception.
They had almost no income. Do we still have to file?

Only if a return was required for them at all, which depends on gross income, age and filing status in the ordinary way. It is still often worth filing where tax was withheld, because that is how the refund gets claimed.
What about state taxes?

A state income tax return may be required on the same footing as the federal one. Separately, a minority of the states Sahvelo has reviewed levy an estate tax on the estate, and fewer still levy an inheritance tax on the person receiving. Sahvelo has verified five states, set out above, and would rather say so than list the rest from memory. If you are in one Sahvelo has not verified, the question worth asking is not only "does my state have an estate tax" but "does my state tax what I receive" — they are different taxes and a state can have either without the other.
Why does my brother owe New Jersey tax on his share and I owe nothing on mine?

Because New Jersey charges the person receiving, not the estate, and the rate depends on the relationship. A child is Class A and pays nothing. A sibling is Class C and pays above an exemption. It is not an error in the will or the accounting, and equal shares can carry unequal tax. Where each of you lives makes no difference; where the person who died lived does.^{Source 10Source 11Source 12}

Official links you'll need

Every link goes directly to the issuing agency or the official tool, and opens in a new tab.

Read IRS Publication 559, for survivors and personal representatives (opens in a new tab)

Official guidance Internal Revenue Service irs.gov
Open Form 1310, to claim a refund for someone who has died (opens in a new tab)

Form Internal Revenue Service irs.gov
Open Form 56, to notify the IRS you are the fiduciary (opens in a new tab)

Form Internal Revenue Service irs.gov
Apply for an estate EIN (opens in a new tab)

Federal application Internal Revenue Service irs.gov
Check the current federal estate tax exclusion (opens in a new tab)

Official guidance Internal Revenue Service irs.gov

The exclusion changes annually, which is why this page links it rather than quoting it.

Where this sits in the process

Before this

These produce something this topic needs.

Being an executorthe personal representative is who files
Death certificatesneeded to establish the date of death and appointment

Retirement accountsinherited account withdrawals are taxed as income when taken
Debts and creditorsunpaid tax is an estate debt with its own priority
Estate sale feeshow sale proceeds meet the valuation and the return
New Jersey inheritance taxthe one state that taxes by relationship rather than by estate size, and whose lien has to be released before assets can move

Sources

The federal rules have one authority and it publishes plainly. The state positions come from each state's own revenue department, and New Jersey publishes more of the mechanism than most.

IRS Publication 559 — Survivors, Executors, and Administrators (opens in a new tab)

When the final individual return is due, and that the date does not move with the date of death.

irs.gov Checked 2026-08-12
IRS Form 1310 and instructions — Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer (opens in a new tab)

How a refund owed to a deceased taxpayer is claimed, and the two exceptions.

irs.gov Checked 2026-08-12
IRS Form 56 — Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship (opens in a new tab)

How a fiduciary notifies the IRS.

irs.gov Checked 2026-08-12
IRS Publication 559 — Survivors, Executors, and Administrators (opens in a new tab)

Who counts as personal representative, and what they are responsible for.

irs.gov Checked 2026-08-12
N.Y. Tax Law §952 (Estate tax imposed) — New York State Senate (opens in a new tab)

New York: the estate tax, and the credit cliff at 105% of the exclusion.

nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-12
Florida Department of Revenue — Florida Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)

Florida: the affirmative statement that there is no estate tax, and the abolished affidavit.

floridarevenue.com Checked 2026-08-12
Arizona Department of Revenue — Fiduciary and Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)

Arizona: the fiduciary income thresholds and the Certificate of Taxes documents.

azdor.gov Checked 2026-08-12
California Franchise Tax Board — Estates and trusts (opens in a new tab)

California: the prompt-assessment request that cuts four years to eighteen months.

ftb.ca.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Estate Tax rates by date of death (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: the estate tax repeal, stated by date of death rather than inferred.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Inheritance and Estate Tax (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: that the inheritance tax is charged on what a beneficiary receives, and that residence of the beneficiary is not a factor.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Inheritance Tax Beneficiary Classes (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: the beneficiary classes, including the stepchild line that does not reach a step-grandchild.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Inheritance Tax Rates (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: the rate bands by class, and the Class C exemption.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Tax Waiver Requirements (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: the 15-year lien and the waiver a bank must have before releasing assets.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12
New Jersey Division of Taxation — Tax Waiver Requirements, blanket waiver and Form L-8 (opens in a new tab)

New Jersey: the blanket waiver releasing half immediately, the self-executing substitute, and the property needing no waiver at all.

nj.gov Checked 2026-08-12

Sources last reviewed 2026-08-12. Where a source is marked pending re-verification, the page says so wherever the claim appears.

Taxes after a death

Short answer

Three returns, and which ones apply to you

Not sure which of these is yours?

Why estate tax almost certainly does not apply

If the bank says the account is frozen

What to file, and when

The final individual return

File the final Form 1040

Claim any refund with Form 1310

Tell the IRS who is acting, with Form 56

If the estate earns income

Get an EIN for the estate

File Form 1041 for the estate

Only for very large estates

File Form 706 if the estate exceeds the federal exclusion

What your state wants, by state

Whether the state taxes the estate itself

Who the tax is charged to, if anyone

The thing that catches people

What closing out with the state looks like

Questions people ask about this

Do I pay income tax on what I inherit?

Who signs the final return?

The final return shows tax owed and the estate has no money.

They had almost no income. Do we still have to file?

What about state taxes?

Why does my brother owe New Jersey tax on his share and I owe nothing on mine?

Official links you'll need

Read IRS Publication 559, for survivors and personal representatives (opens in a new tab)

Open Form 1310, to claim a refund for someone who has died (opens in a new tab)

Open Form 56, to notify the IRS you are the fiduciary (opens in a new tab)

Apply for an estate EIN (opens in a new tab)

Check the current federal estate tax exclusion (opens in a new tab)

Where this sits in the process

Before this

Related

Sources

Tell us what’s missing

Thanks. This helps us decide what to build next.