Estate plans that fell behind residency and family structure
Estate documents are signed at one moment in a family's life and then read at another. In between, people move, marry, divorce, have children, buy property in other states, and form entities. The documents often stay the same. For tax purposes, the most common gap is residency: a plan drafted for one state's rules now governs a household that lives somewhere else, owns real estate in a third state, and files nonresident returns in a fourth. This post covers the tax facts that tend to drift away from an estate plan, and the records that let your attorney see the drift. It is not estate planning advice and it does not tell you what your documents should say. Drafting belongs to counsel. The goal here is to give counsel and your preparer the current facts. Why residency matters at death For 2026, the federal estate and gift basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 per person, and it is indexed for inflation in later years. Many households will never owe federal estate tax. State...