THE FACTS: After my mother’s death, my father met a woman, Mary, who was his partner for many years. They lived in my father’s house, which has a value in excess of $3 million. In his will my father left the house to Mary. He also named Mary as the beneficiary of his life insurance policy, which has a death benefit in excess of $2 million. He left his residuary estate to me and my sister. However, the will states that any estate taxes that may be owed are to come out of his residuary estate. My concern is that paying the estate taxes will likely deplete the residuary estate, leaving my sister and me with nothing.
THE QUESTION: Is there some way we can compel Mary to pay the estate tax from the funds she is receiving? It does not seem fair that we may be paying the taxes on the assets which she will be enjoying.
THE ANSWER: Since your father clearly intended for you and your sister to be beneficiaries of his estate, it appears that he may not have understood which of his assets would be considered in calculating his estate’s tax liability.
If, for example, your father and Mary were married at the time of his death, the value of the assets passing to Mary would be excluded from the value of the estate used to calculate the estate tax liability. That is because there is an unlimited marital deduction that applies when determining whether or not federal or New York state estate tax is due.
It is possible that your father believed the exclusion would apply based upon the fact that he and Mary were living together as husband and wife. Unfortunately for you and your sister, the taxing authorities do not see it that way.
Another possibility is that your father assumed that the death benefit from his life insurance policy would not be included in his gross estate for estate tax purposes. That is a common misconception that often leads to an unexpected tax liability.
Estate taxes are calculated based upon the value of all the assets owned or controlled by an individual at the time of death. Since your father could have changed the beneficiary listed on his life insurance policy up until the time of his death, he had “control” over the $2 million death benefit. For that reason, the value of the death benefit is included in his estate for purposes of calculating the estate tax owed.
It is noteworthy that some people actually buy life insurance so that the death benefit can be used to cover the estate taxes that may be assessed against their estates. By doing so, the decedent provides his beneficiaries with liquid assets that can be used to pay any estate taxes that are assessed against the estate. This, in turn, eliminates the possibility that the beneficiaries may need to sell estate assets just to pay the estate tax.
Even if your father was aware of how the estate tax would be calculated, he may not have realized that his will dictated that all of the taxes be paid from his residuary estate. If that fact had been explained to your father, he may have chosen to apportion the estate tax liability between all of the beneficiaries of his estate.
By apportioning the taxes that were due, Mary would be responsible for the taxes attributed to the value of the house, for example. That would have certainly decreased the amount of taxes being paid from the residuary estate earmarked for you and your sister.
In light of the fact that your father’s will does not provide for the apportionment of the estate, the full tax liability will be paid from the residuary estate unless Mary is willing to pay some or all of the estate tax assessed against your father’s estate. If she is not willing, there is nothing the executor of the estate can do but pay the taxes in accordance with the provisions of the will.
The amount of the estate tax due from your father’s estate will depend on when your father died since the exclusion amount on both the federal and New York state estate tax has been increasing annually for a number of years.
Since April, 2017, the exclusion amount for both federal and New York state estate tax exceeds $5.2 million. Even without apportionment, there is a chance that no estate tax will be due unless the value of your father’s estate exceeds the current exclusion amounts. If it does not, the full amount of the residuary estate will pass to you and your sister without any tax liability.
This article first appeared in the June 26, 2017 issue of the Times Beacon Newspapers.
Linda M. Toga, Esq. provides legal services in the areas of estate planning, probate, estate administration, litigation, wills, trusts, small business services and real estate from her East Setauket office.