Dear Liz: I own a house with my longtime boyfriend. If one of us dies, how does the capital gains step-up affect the other? Answer: The deceased partner’s share of the home will get a new basis for ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about charitable giving and estate planning ideas. Many taxpayers created irrevocable trusts and transferred significant ...

What if a husband and wife own a home together that increases in value by $500,000. When one spouse dies and the other owns the property themselves, do they receive a step-up in basis? Or do they only ...

With the recent increase of the 2026 federal estate and gift tax exemption to an unprecedented and astounding $15 million per person (a whopping $30 million for married couples), the necessity of ...

Here's the thing about estate planning: most people don't think about it until it's too late. The stepped-up basis provision has been quietly saving families billions in taxes for decades, acting as a ...

I noticed this tweet from a wealth adviser: “The greatest perpetuator of U.S. wealth inequality is the stepped-up basis rule. Basically, when you die, all the capital gains on your assets (home, ...

Stepped up basis can minimize the tax bill. Basis is a key concept to understand here. Let’s say you bought a bunch of stock for $100,000 and a few years later sold it for $250,000. To understand how ...