2.1 Introduction

• Library: A Lawyer's Guide to Estate Planning: Fundamentals for the Legal Practitioner (ABA) (2018 Ed.)

2.1 Introduction

The federal estate tax is an excise tax levied on the estate owing to the transfer at death of an individual's property. It differs from an inheritance tax, which many states impose, in that an inheritance tax is levied on each beneficiary's inherited share rather than on the estate itself. The federal gift tax is also an excise tax and is levied on the transfer during an individual's lifetime of that individual's property. Before 1976, the estate tax and the gift tax were separate taxes...