Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Question about estate tax portability

You can’t do an estate tax return on consumer software such as TurboTax.

Law firms with good trusts and estates groups do them regularly. We have software that would probably be too expensive for someone using it for only one or two estate tax returns.

Thanks for the clarification. I did try to look up doing estate tax on Turbo Tax, but all I find is how to enter trust incomes. This may explain why it's not just done automatically. it's probably not cheap so you probably need to have a few million to be worth it.

I haven’t paid attention to the cost of the estate tax software but my guess is that it’s a couple of thousand dollars rather than a few million dollars.

But just as a cookbook won’t make you a chef and a set of dental instruments won’t make you a dentist and a bat and ball and a glove won’t make you a baseball player, software won’t make you a trusts and estates lawyer.

You can’t do an estate tax return on consumer software such as TurboTax.

Law firms with good trusts and estates groups do them regularly. We have software that would probably be too expensive for someone using it for only one or two estate tax returns.

Thanks for the clarification. I did try to look up doing estate tax on Turbo Tax, but all I find is how to enter trust incomes. This may explain why it's not just done automatically. it's probably not cheap so you probably need to have a few million to be worth it.

Estate and Trust return is supported in a different version of TurboTax called "Business". I think its about $200.
The advice to get professional help is not a bad idea, depending on the complexity of your situation.

Edit:
https://turbotax.intuit.com/small-busin ... -download/

That’s for fiduciary income tax returns. The H&R Block Premium and Business software is similar but much less expensive. But neither of them does estate tax returns.

Statistics: Posted by marcopolo — Sun Jun 09, 2024 9:46 pm — Replies 14 — Views 794