All You Need to Know About the Estate Tax

The ‘death tax’ sounds scary, but high exemptions and smart planning mean it rarely applies.dee karen/Shutterstock1/29/2026|Updated: 1/29/2026You’ve heard that the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. And sometimes they seem to come at you at the same time in the form of the estate tax, which is sometimes referred to as the “death tax.”The federal estate tax is levied on the total fair market value of a person’s assets upon death before anything can be transferred to heirs. Some states also have their own estate tax.Javier Simon is a freelance personal finance writer for The Epoch Times. He specializes in retirement planning, investing, taxes, fintech, financial products and more. His work has been featured by major publications including Fox Business, The Motley Fool, NerdWallet, and Money Magazine.Author’s Selected Articles