Understand what makes up the estate
See the property, cash, and investment accounts the projection holds in its final year.
Estate planning
Think beyond a balance.
Picture what you leave.
See how the assets at the end of your plan translate into a modeled legacy, after debt, estimated taxes, and the costs of settling an estate.
Estate planningInside MoneyWhatIf
See what’s possible
What might reach the people you care about?
Explore the composition of the estate and see how different cost assumptions change the amount left behind.
Read the detailed guideFollow each step of the handover
Use the estate flow to see how debt, taxes, property liquidation, and administration affect the result.
Explore the assumptions
Adjust estate-cost scenarios and see how the modeled net legacy changes.
Explore the details
Understand what the future estate contains
Cash, taxable investments, and retirement accounts can contribute differently to the modeled estate after taxes and costs. Start by seeing how the account mix develops over the plan. Then use the estate view to follow the final year’s holdings through the modeled deductions and settlement costs.
- Look at the mix of accounts as well as their combined value.
- Review how account mix and cost assumptions affect the final-year estimate.
Account balancesInside MoneyWhatIf
From a question to a clearer picture
Follow the final balance through the estimate
The estate view starts with the projection's final year and shows how modeled debts, taxes, and costs affect what remains.
Confirm the horizon and the assets
Check the end-of-plan year and choose today's purchasing power or future dollars. Review the property, cash, and investment balances arriving from the projection. This establishes which assets the estate estimate is working with before you explore the assumptions about how they pass.
Set the assumptions you want to examine
Use the calculator to vary the assumed tax on inherited pre-tax accounts, property selling costs, charitable giving, and administration costs. Review the basis treatment, federal assumptions, and selected state. Change one assumption at a time when you want to understand its contribution.
Connect each deduction to the remaining estate
Read the flow and calculator together. Switch between Summary and Detailed views to move from asset categories to individual assets. Inspect where the value goes, then compare gross estate with the modeled net amount reaching beneficiaries under the selected assumptions.
Connect the whole plan
Keep liabilities on the same timeline
The value left behind depends on what is owed as well as what is owned. Debt can decline or end well before the plan’s final year. Reading the mortgage and loan path alongside the estate calculation helps explain why the net amount can change even when gross assets look similar.
- Check the debts remaining at the end of the projection.
- Separate debt repayment from estate taxes and settlement costs.
Debt payoffInside MoneyWhatIf
One way to use it · illustrative scenario
Explore the effect of property selling costs
Imagine a household whose final projection includes a home, retirement accounts, and taxable investments. It wants to understand the sensitivity of its estate estimate to selling property.
Try an example planThe choice to explore
Keep the projected holdings fixed and try a different hypothetical property-liquidation cost in the estate calculator.
Where to look
Follow the real-estate flow into the liquidation-cost destination, then check the calculator's cost total and net-to-beneficiaries result. Review the asset detail to keep that change separate from the treatment of retirement accounts.
What you could learn
This isolates an assumption about settling the estate. It does not change the property's projected market value or arrange a sale.
Make sense of what you see
Read the estate flow from left to right
Gross value is the starting point
The left side shows the projected gross estate. The middle separates that value by asset category or individual holding. Those categories can have different modeled costs, so equal headline balances need not produce equal amounts for beneficiaries.
Each outgoing flow has a reason
The right side names the deductions included in the estimate, such as debt, beneficiary income tax, administration, or property liquidation. Hover a flow for its value. Destinations reflect the assets and assumptions in this scenario; not every category appears in every plan.
The calculator explains the subtraction
Read gross estate minus debt, taxes, and costs alongside estimated net. The percentage of gross remaining makes the scale easier to compare, while the Detailed view helps locate which holdings account for the largest modeled deductions.
A little more detail
Good questions to start with.
Are estate-calculator adjustments saved with the plan?
These controls are scenario inputs held in the estate view, rather than saved plan facts. They let you explore sensitivity to costs and tax assumptions. Use Reset to return to the calculator's starting assumptions.
What does the step-up setting change?
The calculator applies its capital-gains assumption only when step-up is off, using the entered embedded-gain share. This is a simplified way to compare basis-treatment scenarios; it does not determine the legal treatment of each inherited holding.
Does this create an estate plan or calculate each heir's tax?
No. The estimate does not infer trusts, portability, prior gifts, inheritance taxes, special deductions, or individual beneficiary circumstances. The selected state and other calculator inputs describe a modeled settlement scenario, not legal documents or an estate-tax return.
Keep exploring
The next piece of your picture.
Roth conversion planning
Compare conversion strategies and see the trade-offs between taxes today, later withdrawals, and ending wealth.
Tax analytics
Explore estimated lifetime taxes and inspect the income, rates, and deductions behind each year.
Financial reports & exports
Review your financial plan in a readable report and export detailed annual projection and tax tables to explore the numbers behind your forecast.
Know the language
Financial terms behind this feature
Step-Up in BasisCommunity PropertyEstate PlanningWillProbateTrustRevocable Living TrustIrrevocable TrustTrust FundBeneficiary DesignationTransfer on Death (TOD)Estate TaxGift TaxInheritance TaxWealth PreservationInherited IRA
Browse all financial termsYour next chapter
Bring your own what-if.
Start with your numbers. See where they could lead.