Estate Tax

Estate Tax

Introduction

An estate is considered to be an individual's net worth of assets at any given time. this includes the total assets, interests, legal rights, entitlement to any kind of property less all the liabilities that the individual owes to someone else. However, this issue becomes much different in the situations which includes death of that particular individual which owns the assets as well as in the situation of bankruptcy.

Discussion

The United State estate tax is considered to be a tax which is imposed on the transferring of an estate that is taxable. This estate could belong to an individual who had been deceased. The procedure is carried out through a will in accordance with the state laws of intestacy or else made as an incident of individual's death who owned the estate. This would include the property transfer from a trust or an intestate or even the payment of the benefits of certain life insurances or the accounts of finance sums to the beneficiaries. The estate tax is considered to be one part of the United States' Unified Gift and Estate Tax System. Gift tax is considered to be the other part of this system. The gift tax includes transferring property within the life period of the owner. Many of the states of the United States tend to refer to this tax as the inheritance tax or death tax. The tax is not applicable if the estate has been left by the deceased to a charity, which is recognized by the federal government or to its spouse.

It is important to note the imposition of the federal estate tax is done only on the transfer of the estates that are taxable of every decedent who is known to be a US citizen. The initial stage of calculation includes the gross estate. It is value which is determined of all the interests of an individual at the time before its death. This would even include the property which has not been owned by the individual when it died. In addition to that, the property's value which has been held by the spouse is also counted under the gross estate. Various other additions and deductions are made in the overall calculations. There have been different views regarding the estate taxes, some favor it and some do not.

Arguments

It has been argued by numerous proponents that the estate tax is essential for ...