The IRS announced October 2oth, 2011 that the amount exemption from estate taxes will increase next year. For an estate of any decedent dying during calendar year 2012, the basic exclusion from estate tax amount will be $5,120,000, up from $5,000,000 in 2011.

For Special Use Valuation for qualified real property, the aggregate decrease in the value of the property resulting from the election cannot exceed $1,040,000, up from $1,020,000 for 2011.

The annual exclusion for gifts will remain at $13,000.

It seems likely that states will go after estate taxes as a method to deal with their fiscal deficits.  What are your thoughts?
RESPONSES:
Barry Gordon• I would be curious even though my work is in Canada. Here, we don’t have “estate tax” per se, but we do have probate fees when one files to prove the Will. In Ontario they are approximately $15,000 per Million in estate asset value.
James Respess • States will be looking for the most painless way to raise revenue. It seems Estate and Inheritance Taxes are the least painless for the masses
Donald Hendel, Esq. • Add a comment…Connecticut recently lowered its estate tax exemption from 3.5M to 2.0M.
Tony De Angelo • All true. Last time I heard, dead people cannot vote (except in parts of Chicago, and several Connecticut cities).
John Rudisill• The Ken Burns Prohibition documentary referred to the income tax enabling the federal government to decrease its reliance on alcohol excise taxes (5th greatest source of federal income), but it failed to mention E & G taxes. My recollection is that entry into WWI on the Allies side required new revenues, and that the death tax began about the same time. (1917) as the income tax, both to pay for the war and to prevent family oligarchy’s from continuing (when magnates were not as generous with their fortunes os Andrew Carnegie). If we embrace a “pay as you go” strategy for war-making, we will either have to reduce our military empire of bases or pass death taxes again, or both.
Kimmer Callahan • I primarily work in Idaho — I do not foresee Idaho adopting a stand-alone estate tax. The old pick-up estate tax laws are still on the books, so if the Federal “state estate tax credit” ever comes back, Idaho will again have an estate tax. Otherwise, I believe an estate tax is a political non-starter here in Idaho. The dead may no vote, but the not yet dead do!
Doug Cumpson • Arguably in the next 10 years there will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of North America and if I was the Director of Tax reporting to the Minister of Tax and I wanted to fill a budget short-fall expeditiously and tax efficiently I would encourage new legislation to raise estate taxes and tax life insurance premiums and benefits enough to fill the void

But them again – this takes political will – insight and formidable plan of execution.
Kevin Diamond• While I do not see states raising Estate Tax Rates, etc., what I do see them doing is following the lead of the IRS in allowing and paying Whistle Blowers. For those of you who do not know, the IRS has opened a Whistleblowers Office and has over 2,000 claims already. The motivation is MONEY! The IRS will pay out from 15% to 30% of the proceeds recovered to the Whistleblower. This is a spin off of the False Claims Act that President Lincoln started and is often seen today to catch military and/or medicaid contractors who have defrauded the government. The IRS’s program is now just getting momentum and what happened next … THREE OTHER STATES have followed suit and are paying bounties for State Tax cheats! So that is one alternative that I see coming. If New York’s program works and they make money at it, watch out!