An estate planning CPA is the accountant who handles the tax and financial side of your estate plan — projecting what your estate will owe, structuring gifts and trusts to reduce that bill, filing the returns required after a death, and coordinating with your attorney so the documents actually perform the way they were drafted. With the federal estate and gift tax exclusion permanently set at $15 million per person for 2026, the CPA’s analysis determines whether your estate faces a federal tax bill at all and, if it does, how to shrink it.1Internal Revenue Service. What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax
What an Estate Planning CPA Actually Does
The attorney drafts the will, the trust, and the powers of attorney. The CPA runs the numbers behind those documents. That split matters because most of the money an estate plan saves — or loses — comes from tax decisions, not drafting choices.
The core work covers three fronts: estate and gift tax minimization while you’re alive, income tax planning around trusts and asset basis, and compliance filings after a death. On top of that, the CPA typically models liquidity, coordinates valuations, and handles the tax side of business succession when a closely held company is in the mix.
Lifetime Estate and Gift Tax Planning
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, permanently raised the federal estate and gift tax basic exclusion amount to $15 million per individual, with inflation adjustments beginning in 2027.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 2010 – Unified Credit Against Estate Tax A married couple can collectively shield up to $30 million from federal estate and gift tax. The CPA tracks how much of that exclusion you’ve used through lifetime gifts and plans when and how to deploy the rest.
Separately, the annual gift tax exclusion lets you give up to $19,000 per recipient each year without touching your lifetime exemption.3Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes A married couple giving jointly can transfer $38,000 per recipient. Over years, these annual gifts systematically reduce your taxable estate. The CPA maps a multi-year gifting schedule, coordinates it with your cash flow, and makes sure no gift inadvertently triggers a filing requirement or eats into the lifetime exemption unnecessarily.
Portability of a Spouse’s Unused Exclusion
When a married person dies without using their full $15 million exclusion, the surviving spouse can claim the leftover amount. This is the deceased spousal unused exclusion, or DSUE. Claiming it requires filing a federal estate tax return (Form 706) even if the estate owes no tax.4Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Estate Taxes It is one of the most commonly missed elections in estate planning, and it is exactly the deadline a CPA tracks.
The return must be filed within nine months of death, though a six-month extension is available through Form 4768.5Internal Revenue Service. About Form 4768, Application for Extension of Time to File a Return and/or Pay US Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Taxes Missing this window can forfeit millions in unused exclusion and potentially expose the surviving spouse’s estate to the top federal estate tax rate of 40%.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2001 – Imposition and Rate of Tax A late filing may be possible in some circumstances, but relying on that is a gamble a competent CPA would avoid.
Generation-Skipping Transfers
If your plan leaves wealth to grandchildren or more remote descendants, whether outright or through trusts, the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax applies on top of any estate or gift tax. The GST exemption for 2026 matches the basic exclusion at $15 million per person.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2631 – GST Exemption Unlike the estate tax exclusion, the GST exemption is not portable between spouses. That distinction requires careful allocation during the first spouse’s estate administration, and it’s a place where CPA oversight prevents expensive mistakes.
Basis Planning That Saves the Heirs
Estate tax gets the headlines, but for most families the bigger savings come from managing the income tax basis of assets. Inherited property has its basis reset to fair market value as of the date of death.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent If a parent bought stock for $50,000 and it’s worth $500,000 at death, an heir who sells it the next day for $500,000 owes zero capital gains tax. All $450,000 of accumulated gain is permanently eliminated.
That’s why a CPA will almost always advise against gifting highly appreciated assets during your lifetime. A gift carries over your original low basis. The CPA identifies which assets have the most built-in gain, flags them as hold-for-the-step-up assets, and builds the gifting plan around lower-gain property instead.
The step-up works in reverse too. If an asset has lost value, that loss disappears at death because basis resets to the current (lower) fair market value. A CPA watching for this will recommend selling depreciated assets while you’re alive, so the capital loss can be claimed on your final Form 1040. Capital losses offset capital gains dollar-for-dollar, plus up to $3,000 of ordinary income per year, with any excess carrying forward.9Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses Without this planning, the loss evaporates.
Trust Taxation
Trusts are powerful estate planning tools, but their income tax treatment punishes inattention. Trusts hit the highest federal income tax bracket at absurdly low income levels. In 2026, a single person doesn’t reach the 37% bracket until over $640,000 of taxable income. A trust reaches that same 37% rate at just $16,000.10Internal Revenue Service. Form 1041-ES, Estimated Income Tax for Estates and Trusts – 2026 Tax Rate Schedule Every dollar of income retained inside the trust is taxed more aggressively than if a beneficiary reported it on their own return.
The CPA’s primary lever is distribution timing. Directing the trustee to distribute income to beneficiaries in lower tax brackets shifts the tax burden from the trust to those individuals. Each beneficiary receives a Schedule K-1 reporting their share of trust income, deductions, and credits.11Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule K-1 (Form 1041) for a Beneficiary Filing Form 1040 or 1040-SR
The 65-Day Rule
Tax years don’t always cooperate with distribution decisions. Under Section 663(b), any distribution made within the first 65 days of the new tax year can be treated as if it were made on the last day of the prior year.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 663 – Special Rules Applicable to Sections 661 and 662 The trustee must affirmatively elect this treatment, and the amount is capped at the trust’s distributable net income for the prior year. A CPA who reviews trust income in January has a narrow but valuable window to retroactively fix a bad tax outcome.
Section 645 Election
When someone dies with a revocable living trust, the trust normally needs its own income tax return immediately. A Section 645 election lets the trust be treated as part of the estate for income tax purposes, consolidating everything onto a single Form 1041. That unlocks a fiscal-year option instead of a calendar year, qualification as an S corporation shareholder without separate elections, and a waiver of estimated tax payments for up to two years after death. The CPA coordinates this election with the estate attorney and files it with the estate’s first income tax return.
Post-Death Filings
After a death, the CPA’s workload intensifies rather than winds down. Several federal filings have firm deadlines, and missing any of them costs the estate real money.
The decedent’s final Form 1040 covers income from January 1 through the date of death. The usual individual filing deadline applies — typically April 15 of the following year — and extensions are available.13Internal Revenue Service. Filing a Final Federal Tax Return for Someone Who Has Died The CPA allocates income properly between the decedent’s final return, the estate’s income tax return, and any trust returns.
Form 706 is due nine months after the date of death, with an automatic six-month extension available through Form 4768. Even estates below the $15 million filing threshold must file Form 706 to elect portability of the deceased spouse’s unused exclusion.14Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 706 The CPA prepares or oversees this return, coordinating asset valuations, deductions, and GST exemption allocations across trusts created at death.
Executors of estates required to file Form 706 must also file Form 8971, which reports the value of each asset to both the IRS and the beneficiaries who receive those assets. The deadline is the earlier of 30 days after the Form 706 due date (including extensions) or 30 days after the return is actually filed.15Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8971 and Schedule A Beneficiaries must then use those values as their basis when they sell inherited property. The CPA makes sure the numbers match from the start, because a beneficiary who later reports a higher basis than what the estate reported gets flagged by the IRS.
Valuations, Liquidity, and Titling
Every estate tax calculation begins with valuation. Publicly traded stocks have obvious values, but closely held businesses, commercial real estate, partnership interests, and collectibles require formal appraisals. The CPA coordinates these valuations and ensures they meet IRS standards for fair market value, often working with accredited appraisal specialists.
Getting valuations wrong carries penalties beyond just owing more tax. If the value reported on an estate tax return is 65% or less of the correct amount, the IRS imposes a 20% accuracy-related penalty on the resulting underpayment. If the reported value drops to 40% or less of the correct amount, the penalty doubles to 40%.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty on Underpayments These penalties apply on top of the additional tax owed.
An estate can be worth tens of millions on paper and still not have the cash to pay taxes and administration costs when they come due. The CPA builds a liquidity projection showing what the estate will owe against what liquid assets are available to pay it. When the numbers don’t balance, the analysis points toward solutions: life insurance to provide immediate cash, installment payment elections for estates with qualifying business interests, or restructuring the portfolio to hold more liquid assets. Without this analysis, families end up selling real estate or business interests at fire-sale prices to meet tax deadlines.
A plan that looks perfect on paper fails if assets aren’t titled correctly. A revocable trust only controls assets that have been legally transferred into it. Property still in your individual name at death typically passes through probate regardless of what your trust document says. The CPA audits asset titling periodically with the attorney, confirming that bank accounts, investment accounts, and real property are held in the name of the trust or carry proper beneficiary designations. People refinance a home and the new deed goes back in their personal name. They open a new brokerage account and forget to title it to the trust. These aren’t dramatic mistakes. They’re quiet ones that only surface after death.
Charitable Giving
Charitable giving is both an estate-reduction strategy and a lifetime income tax tool. A charitable remainder trust lets you transfer appreciated assets into an irrevocable trust that pays you (or another beneficiary) income for a set period, with the remainder going to charity. You get an immediate income tax deduction based on the present value of the charity’s expected remainder interest, and the trust can sell the appreciated assets without triggering immediate capital gains tax. The CPA models the payout rate, the trust term, and the deduction to make sure the structure meets the IRS requirement that the charitable remainder be at least 10% of the initial trust value.
For retirees with traditional IRAs, qualified charitable distributions offer a simpler approach. If you’re age 70½ or older, you can donate up to $111,000 directly from your IRA to a qualified charity in 2026, and the distribution is excluded from your taxable income entirely. A married couple can each make a separate $111,000 QCD. The CPA coordinates QCDs with required minimum distributions to reduce adjusted gross income, which can lower Medicare premiums and reduce the taxable portion of Social Security benefits.
Business Succession
When a closely held business makes up a large share of the estate, the CPA’s role expands into territory that sits at the intersection of personal financial security and corporate continuity. Every succession plan starts with an independent business valuation. Whether you’re gifting shares to the next generation, selling to a co-owner, or planning for a future buyout, the transfer price needs to reflect fair market value. The CPA selects the valuation approach appropriate for the industry and transaction type, and the chosen method must hold up under IRS scrutiny. An artificially low valuation risks the IRS recharacterizing the transfer as a disguised gift.
The CPA also models how different succession paths affect the owner’s retirement income. Selling outright in a single transaction creates a large taxable event in one year. A gradual transfer through installment sales, gifting programs, or a combination spreads the tax impact over multiple years but introduces complexity around control, cash flow, and valuation updates.
Buy-sell agreements govern what happens to a business interest when an owner dies, becomes disabled, or wants to exit. The CPA structures the funding behind these agreements, typically life insurance policies, and ensures the purchase price receives favorable tax treatment. For estates where the business represents more than 35% of the gross estate’s value (after deductions), Section 303 allows the corporation to redeem enough stock to cover death taxes plus funeral and administration expenses, and the redemption is treated as a sale rather than a dividend.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 303 – Distributions in Redemption of Stock to Pay Death Taxes Without Section 303, a corporate distribution to a shareholder-estate would risk being taxed as ordinary income. The CPA identifies whether the estate qualifies and coordinates the redemption with tax payment deadlines.
How to Choose One
Not every CPA has estate planning experience. General tax preparers handle individual returns and small-business filings; transfer tax law, trust taxation, and business succession are specialized disciplines that require different training.
Credentials Worth Looking For
The Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) designation is granted exclusively to CPAs with demonstrated expertise in estate, retirement, investment, and insurance planning.18AICPA & CIMA. Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) Credential For business owners whose estate plan involves a closely held company, the Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) credential signals that the CPA has been tested on the valuation methodologies that govern succession planning.19AICPA & CIMA. Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) Credential Either credential indicates specialization beyond the base CPA license.
Collaboration With Your Attorney
Estate planning is a team effort involving the CPA, the attorney, a financial advisor, and sometimes an insurance specialist. Ask how they coordinate with estate planning attorneys, how they handle disagreements about strategy, and whether they’ve worked with the specific trust and tax rules in your state. The best estate planning CPAs have long-standing working relationships with attorneys in the same practice area and can point to engagements where that collaboration produced measurably better outcomes.
Fees
CPAs typically bill estate planning work hourly or through fixed fees for defined deliverables. Hourly billing suits ongoing advisory work and complex situations that evolve over time. A fixed fee provides cost certainty for discrete tasks like calculating potential estate tax liability, modeling the portability election, or preparing Form 706. Ask for the billing structure upfront, including what triggers additional fees, so the engagement scope is clear before work begins.