Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about charitable giving and estate planning ideas. Many taxpayers created irrevocable trusts and transferred significant ...

With the recent increase of the 2026 federal estate and gift tax exemption to an unprecedented and astounding $15 million per person (a whopping $30 million for married couples), the necessity of ...

I noticed this tweet from a wealth adviser: “The greatest perpetuator of U.S. wealth inequality is the stepped-up basis rule. Basically, when you die, all the capital gains on your assets (home, ...

Tucked away in the American Families Plan, is a proposal to change the way capital gains taxes are paid on estates when people pass away. This seemingly small revision to a tax rule called stepped up ...

For the better part of the past 100 years, the basis of an inherited asset is raised—stepped up, as it were—to the asset’s fair market value at the time of the original owner’s death. So let’s say you ...