The purpose of estate tax planning is to maximize the assets you pass on to future generations by minimizing gift and estate taxes. Estate-tax strategies revolve around the use of irrevocable trusts. This article discusses the most common types of irrevocable trusts that are used to minimize gift and estate […]
If you have a significant amount of assets that you want to pass on to heirs and are a Indiana resident, you may wonder how much your heirs will lose to the estate tax. Fortunately, Indiana doesn’t have an estate tax of its own. But Indiana residents are still subject to federal estate tax at a rate of 40%.
In this article, we’ll review the basics of the estate tax and walk through different tactical approaches you can take to maximize the hard-earned gains you pass on to future generations:
Before diving into the Indiana estate tax and its workings, let’s get into the estate tax basics.
The estate tax is a tax on assets transferred on a deceased person’s death to individuals other than the deceased person’s spouse. It is paid by the deceased person’s estate and is due nine months after the person’s death. The federal estate tax rate is 40%. That means that if you are leaving your beneficiaries a $23.99 million estate, the estate will owe $4,000,000 in federal estate tax. And that’s even before accounting for any state estate tax liability!
Each individual has a lifetime exemption from both estate tax and gift tax (see below). This exemption is the value of assets you can give away, throughout your life and after your death, without being subject to federal estate tax. For 2025, this exemption is $13.99 million per person (up from $13.61 million in 2024). Because the exemption is per person, married couples can effectively give away double that amount.
However, the federal estate tax exemption level is scheduled to be reduced by 50% to about $7.15 million when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunsets on January 1, 2026. That is why it’s essential to get started with estate planning sooner rather than later.
Need some help to understand the most convenient tax planning structure to reduce your estate taxes? Our team of tax-planning experts can help!
The gift tax is similar to the estate tax, except instead of applying to transfers upon death, it applies to transfers made during life. Gifts are also taxed at 40% at the federal level. If someone gifts $1,000,000 to her child and the giver has already used up her lifetime exemption amount (discussed above), that gift will generate $400,000 of federal gift tax liability.
In addition to the lifetime exemption amount, each individual has an annual gift tax exclusion amount. This is the amount someone can gift in any given year to a person without using up any lifetime exemption or having to report the gift on a gift tax return (Form 709). In 2025, the annual exclusion amount is $19,000.
The estate tax is pretty draconian. Fortunately, it can be minimized or completely avoided through estate-tax planning. Estate-tax planning is about arranging your affairs to minimize the amount of federal and state estate taxes your heirs will face and maximize how much you pass on to them. In practice, it means making lifetime gifts to irrevocable trusts that are designed to transfer assets to your loved ones as tax efficiently as possible. Valur can help you set up these trusts for free!
Indiana does not have an estate tax. As a result, when passing assets on, you won’t owe Indiana estate taxes. This makes Indiana attractive for wealthy individuals, as they can pass on their assets to their heirs without worrying about state-level tax. However, if the estate’s value exceeds the federal estate tax exemption amount, then the estate will be responsible for paying federal estate tax.
Let’s say that Samantha, a single woman, dies with an estate valued at $18 million. She will owe federal estate tax on the amount in excess of the $13.99 million federal estate tax exemption amount. The tax liability will come out to about $1.6 million. The remaining $16.4 million will be divided amongst Samantha’s heirs pursuant to her estate-planning documents.
No, Indiana does not have a separate gift tax. The only state with a state-level gift tax is Connecticut. However, there is a federal gift tax (as discussed above), which applies to gifts in excess of the lifetime exemption amount.
While Indiana residents won’t face a Indiana estate tax, they may still face federal estate tax. Here are some strategies that can help minimize or completely avoid the federal estate tax:
You can also compare the quantitative returns and tax savings of these different strategies using our estate tax savings calculator and customize it to your own situation
The good news is that Indiana doesn’t have an estate tax. The bad news is that Indiana residents planning to pass on amounts in excess of the federal lifetime exemption amount will still need to deal with federal estate tax. Read more about other U.S. states and their estate taxes, use our Guided Planner tool to find helpful solutions, or schedule a time to talk with our expert team.
We’ve built a platform to give everyone access to the tax and wealth-building tools typically reserved for wealthy individuals with a team of accountants and lawyers. We make it simple and seamless for our customers to take advantage of these hard-to-access tax-advantaged structures. With Valur, you can build your wealth more efficiently at less than half the cost of competitors.
From picking the best strategy to taking care of all the setup and ongoing overhead, we make things simple. The results are real: We have helped create more than $1.1 billion in additional wealth for our customers. If you would like to learn more, please feel free to explore our Learning Center. You can also see your potential tax savings with our online calculators or schedule a time to chat with us!
