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 ...

Estate planning usually involves determining how to pass assets on to younger generations. But instead of leaving a piece of real estate, bank account or burgeoning stock portfolio to your children, ...

What if a husband and wife own a home together that increases in value by $500,000. When one spouse dies and the other owns the property themselves, do they receive a step-up in basis? Or do they only ...

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, ...

Q. My father is in his 80s and owns a farm which is now very valuable because it is located in an area that is being heavily developed. He bought it about 50 years ago for a very low price. He wants ...

For families locked into highly appreciated stock that could bring a big tax hit from the capital gains on any sale of the holdings, a so-called upstream gift could offer a solution. Processing ...