The term “estate tax” probably doesn’t incite the same amount of rage as the term “death tax,” but that’s what this state taxis: You die, and then the government taxes a portion of the estate you turn over to your surviving relatives.
The good news is that unless you have a substantial estate nearing that of the country’s wealthiest 1 percent of earners, you don’t have to worry about the estate tax. For 2015, the estate tax exemption is $5.43 million, increasing to $5.45 million for 2016. Once the estate owner dies, there isn’t much beneficiaries can do to reduce estate taxes, so the time to act is now.
