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- 01
Estate summary
The heading names the final plan year, its calendar year and each person’s age, and whether figures are in that year’s dollars or today’s purchasing power. Three figures follow: the gross estate (every projected asset before debt), the estimated taxes and costs with any projected debt noted beneath, and the estimated net to beneficiaries with its share of the gross estate.
Then up to three insight cards: the share reaching beneficiaries (green at 80% or more, amber below), the largest asset category, and either the beneficiary income tax on tax-deferred balances (when they exceed a quarter of the gross estate), the debt still standing, or a note that none remains.
When the estimated net is below zero, two cards replace these: the size of the shortfall and an insolvency note.
- 02
Assets and debts
The estate is a reading of the final projection row, not a fresh simulation. Every asset is sorted into one of six categories: real estate, tax-deferred accounts, Roth accounts, taxable brokerage, cash accounts, and cash the plan saved.
Pre-tax kinds, including Health Savings Accounts and inherited IRAs, count as tax-deferred, and after-tax 401(k) money sits with them because its untaxed growth is ordinary income to an heir. Roth 401(k) and 529 balances make the Roth category; Roth IRA and inherited Roth balances are shown with cash accounts.
Debts are the mortgage on each property, standalone loans still amortizing, any unfunded cash shortfall in the final year, and the final tax return the projection never settles, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium-credit settle-up. The only reduction made at this stage is debt; every tax and cost belongs to the calculator.
- 03
Estate flow
A Sankey diagram spends the gross estate down through its destinations in a fixed order: debt settled, beneficiary income tax, capital-gains tax, property liquidation, charitable giving, administration costs, state estate tax, then federal estate tax, with the remainder shown as net to beneficiaries.
A cost the calculator ties to one asset leaves that asset; a pooled cost is spread across whatever value is still standing, so every column totals what the calculator reports. The state’s bill comes before the federal one because it is deducted in computing the federal base. Summary shows one ribbon per category; Detailed shows one per asset. Hovering a ribbon names its value.
A warning appears when liabilities exceed the assets, or when the estimated deductions exceed the estate.
- 04
Taxes, costs & beneficiary net
The calculator restates the arithmetic: gross estate, less debt, taxes and costs, equals the estimated net. A cost breakdown lists nine tiles: projected debt, beneficiary income tax, capital-gains tax, property liquidation, charitable giving, administration costs, the state estate tax, the federal exemption applied (shielded, not spent) and the federal estate tax.
Below it a table gives each category or asset its gross, costs and net; opening a row lists the lines behind its cost, and the adjustment rows at the bottom walk through charity, the state tax, the federal tax and administration one step at a time.
The state taxes the estate after debt, charity and administration; the federal base is that figure less the state’s bill, then less the exemption, charged at the flat federal rate.
- 05
Your assumptions
The estimate uses only the assumptions in this panel, which start from fixed defaults: a 25% beneficiary tax on inherited pre-tax money, a 15% capital-gains rate on a 40% embedded-gain share (applied only when stepped-up basis is switched off), 6% property liquidation, 0% charitable giving, 1% administration, a $15 million federal exemption ($30 million for a two-person household) with a 40% rate, and the estate tax of the state the plan ends in.
The dollar exemption is typed in today’s money and grows with the plan’s inflation when the page shows future dollars. Any state can be picked; the thirty-eight without an estate tax charge nothing. Reset returns the defaults.
- 06
State estate tax
Twelve states and the District of Columbia tax estates on their own terms, and each schedule here is written from its statute or revenue form for a death in 2026.
Five shapes appear: a ladder on the excess over a threshold (Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maine, Vermont, Maryland, and Connecticut with a cap on the bill); a ladder on the whole estate above a zero bracket (the District); the old federal credit less a fixed credit (Massachusetts, Rhode Island); New York’s cliff, which forgives the tax up to the exclusion, phases the forgiveness out to 105% of it and taxes the whole estate past that; and Illinois’s interrelated computation.
Opening the state row shows the threshold, the excess and how the figure was reached.
- 07
Account types and legacy goals
A card per category says how that money may pass: pre-tax balances as ordinary income to the heir, qualified Roth money free of income tax, taxable assets possibly at a stepped-up basis, cash dollar for dollar. Beneath it the page names what is still outside the estimate and asks up to three planning questions drawn from the estate’s own shape.
The legacy lens makes the net figure tangible: divided evenly among one to four beneficiaries, the share held outside real estate, how many years of the plan’s final-year living cost it would fund, and the share still tax-deferred. These are illustrations, not allocations.
What changes what
Controls & settings
Check what each control changes and whether it recalculates your forecast.
Switches the whole page between the horizon year’s dollars and today’s purchasing power. Balances, values and debts are rescaled, and the federal exemption and the state’s thresholds are re-expressed in the same money so the scenario being tested does not change. The setting is shared with the other plan pages.
Summary draws one ribbon per asset category through the flow diagram; Detailed draws one per individual asset. The totals in every column are unchanged.
Shows the cost table by category or by asset. Opening any row lists the lines behind its cost; opening an adjustment row (charity, state tax, federal tax, administration) walks through that figure one step at a time.
Tax-deferred rate (up to 50%), capital-gains rate (up to 40%), embedded gain share (up to 100%), property liquidation (up to 15%), charitable giving (up to 100%), administration costs (up to 10%) and federal estate-tax rate (up to 50%). Each change recomputes the calculator, the flow and the summary figures. Reset restores every default.
Yes removes the capital-gains estimate on taxable brokerage and real estate. No charges the capital-gains rate on the embedded-gain share of those assets and reveals the embedded gain share slider.
A dollar figure in today’s money, with One person ($15M) and Couple ($30M) presets from 2026 law. A two-person household starts at $30M. The bill is the federal rate on the estate after debt, charity, administration and the state’s tax, above this amount.
Picks the state whose schedule is charged, or None. It starts as the state the plan ends in (the destination of a move once its year has come). A state without an estate tax charges nothing. If the plan’s address changes, the field follows only while it still holds its prior default.
Divides the estimated net evenly for the per-beneficiary figure in the legacy lens. Starts at 2. Purely illustrative.
Reading the result
Read the results
The gross estate is every asset at its projected balance before anything is deducted; the net figure is after debt and after the calculator’s assumptions, and the percentage beside it is the share of the gross estate that reaches beneficiaries.
“Federal exemption applied” is not a deduction. It is the slice the federal tax never reaches, listed beside the federal tax to explain why the tax is the size it is.
State thresholds are carried forward at the plan’s inflation whether or not the law indexes them; where the threshold is frozen in law, the real bill would run larger than the one shown, and the state row says which kind it is.
“Final tax return due” is the last year’s filing that the projection never settles, so it is one more debt the estate clears; a refund appears instead as cash the estate is still owed.
The living-cost equivalent divides the net legacy by the final year’s living costs (spending, mortgage, property tax, upkeep, Medicare and the like), and reads “100+ years” once it reaches a century.
One plan, several readings
Related pages
Projection →
The estate is the final row of the same funded projection the net-worth chart draws, and the Today’s money toggle is the same setting the projection pages use.
Taxes →
The “Final tax return due” line is the last year’s income-tax filing, including the ACA premium-credit settle-up, carried out of the projection unsettled.
Tax Planning →
Roth conversions move money out of the tax-deferred category, the only one the beneficiary income tax is charged on, so a conversion policy changes what this page shows.
The plan’s own sections
The state charged by default comes from the plan’s address, including a move whose year has arrived, and the household’s size sets the starting federal exemption; both come from the plan’s settings.
Keep following the math
Key concepts
Keep in mind
Model limits
Nothing on this page changes the projection: every control is a display or scenario setting, and the assumptions are not saved with the plan.
Inheritance taxes (Pennsylvania’s 4.5% and Nebraska’s 1% on children, and the collateral-heir taxes of Kentucky, New Jersey and Maryland), portability of a spouse’s unused exclusion, adjusted taxable gifts, trusts, special deductions, itemized professional fees and each beneficiary’s own tax situation are not modeled.
Only one state’s estate tax is charged, and property taxed by more than one state is not apportioned; Massachusetts’s exclusion of out-of-state property is not separated out.
The federal tax is a flat rate above one exemption, the beneficiary tax is a flat rate on inherited pre-tax money, and the embedded gain is an assumed share, not the plan’s actual cost basis.
The schedules are 2026 law; future changes in law are not projected, and the page is an educational illustration rather than a tax return or estate plan.
This guide documents the page as built. The figures on it follow the plan’s own assumptions; none of it is individualized tax, legal, Medicare, or investment advice.