Need legal counsel for your estate?
The Law Offices of Jason W. Stern & Associates is here to help through the administration of a New York estate and to guide the family through every step of this process. The lawyers have more than 70 years of combined estate law experience handling estates for families.
When someone dies without a will, the estate is intestate. An intestate estate must be processed through the administration office of Surrogate’s Court. That is a costly, lengthy process, and it becomes a financial hardship for the people left with it. The court first determines who the heirs are.
A will is the contrast, not the subject of this page. A person who dies with a will is a testator. That will is offered in Surrogate’s Court and the proceeds are distributed to the people named in it. Either way the estate still has to be administered: the assets collected, the debts and expenses paid, and what remains passed on. If you are in a New York Surrogate’s Court on an administration, work with an experienced New York estate attorney.
Preparing your estate
Creating and preserving an original copy of a will in a safe place prevents one of the biggest financial burdens a person can leave at an already difficult time. Without that original, the family is left in administration.
Each year, avoidable estate tax is paid to the federal government and to New York. That usually happens when no one prepared for it. No recipient of an estate should bear a higher tax than the law requires. Wills, and where they fit, revocable trusts and irrevocable trusts, are how the proceeds pass as intended from one generation to the next.
For a death in 2026, the federal basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person. The top federal rate is 40 percent. Federal law allows portability, so a surviving spouse can claim what the first spouse did not use, if the estate elects it on a timely return. Capital assets still take a step-up in basis to the value at death. These figures are for a 2026 death. They are not a figure for a later year.
New York is a separate tax. For a death in 2026 the New York basic exclusion is $7,350,000. New York does not allow portability between spouses. New York has no gift tax.
The points that get missed:
- An estate under the federal $15,000,000 line can still owe New York estate tax. The two numbers are not the same tax.
- New York’s exclusion is a cliff. For a 2026 death, once the taxable estate passes $7,717,500, the exclusion is gone and the tax runs from the first dollar, not only on the amount over $7,350,000. The top New York rate is 16 percent.
- New York does not follow federal portability. A spouse’s unused New York exclusion dies with that spouse.
- An account with a named beneficiary, and property owned jointly, can pass outside the administration. It can still be counted in the taxable estate.
- Debts, funeral costs, and the expenses of administration are paid before anyone inherits.
Have questions about a New York estate administration? Contact the firm. The consultation is free.