An estate planning CPA is the tax and financial specialist who works alongside your estate planning attorney, running the numbers behind the wills, trusts, and powers of attorney the lawyer drafts. The attorney builds the legal structure; the CPA projects the tax consequences, models wealth-transfer strategies, tracks the deadlines, and makes sure the plan actually performs the way it reads on paper. With the federal estate and gift tax exclusion now permanently set at $15 million per person for 2026, the CPA’s analysis determines whether your estate faces a 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 work splits across your lifetime and the period after death. During your life, the CPA plans around transfer taxes and income taxes. After death, the CPA handles the compliance filings that preserve what the planning set up.
Managing the Lifetime Exclusion
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, permanently set the federal estate and gift tax basic exclusion at $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. The CPA tracks how much of that exclusion you’ve already used through lifetime gifts and plans when and how to deploy the rest.
On top of that lifetime number, the annual gift tax exclusion lets you give $19,000 per recipient per year without touching the lifetime amount at all.3Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes A married couple giving jointly can transfer $38,000 per recipient. The CPA maps out a multi-year gifting schedule, coordinates it with your cash flow, and makes sure no gift accidentally triggers a filing requirement or eats into the lifetime exemption when it didn’t have to.
Choosing What to Gift and What to Hold
Not every asset should be given away during life. When you inherit property, its tax basis resets to fair market value at the date of death. Stock a parent bought for $50,000 that is worth $500,000 when they die passes to you with a $500,000 basis, and if you sell the next day for $500,000, the capital gains tax is zero. All $450,000 of accumulated gain is permanently eliminated.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent
A gift works the opposite way. The recipient inherits your original low basis and the full capital gains bill whenever they sell. So the CPA will almost always advise against gifting highly appreciated assets during your lifetime. Instead, you hold those assets until death and let the step-up erase the gain. The gifting program is built around lower-gain property.
The step-up also runs in reverse. If an asset has lost value, that loss disappears at death because basis resets to the lower current value. A CPA watching for this will recommend selling depreciated holdings while you are alive so you can claim the capital loss on your final Form 1040. Capital losses offset gains dollar for dollar, plus up to $3,000 of ordinary income each year, with any excess carrying forward.5Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses Without this planning, the loss evaporates and benefits no one.
Running the Tax Side of Your Trusts
Trusts are powerful tools, but their income tax treatment punishes inattention. A trust reaches the top 37% federal bracket at just $16,000 of taxable income in 2026, while a single individual doesn’t hit that bracket until over $640,000.6Internal Revenue Service. Form 1041-ES, Estimated Income Tax for Estates and Trusts – 2026 Tax Rate Schedule Every dollar held inside the trust is taxed harder than if a beneficiary reported it on their own return.
The CPA’s main lever is distribution timing. Directing the trustee to push income out to beneficiaries in lower brackets shifts the tax from the trust to those individuals, with each beneficiary receiving a Schedule K-1 for their share.7Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule K-1 (Form 1041) for a Beneficiary Filing Form 1040 or 1040-SR For revocable trusts after death, the CPA also considers a Section 645 election to treat the trust as part of the estate, consolidating filings onto one Form 1041, opening a fiscal-year choice, and waiving estimated tax payments for up to two years after death.
Valuing Assets and Projecting Liquidity
Every estate tax calculation starts with valuation. Public stock is easy. Closely held businesses, commercial real estate, partnership interests, and collectibles require formal appraisals, and the CPA coordinates them to meet IRS standards for fair market value.
The penalty exposure is real. 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 underpayment. If the reported value drops to 40% or less of the correct amount, that penalty doubles to 40%.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty on Underpayments These apply on top of the extra tax owed.
The CPA also builds a liquidity projection. An estate can be worth tens of millions on paper and still lack the cash to pay the tax bill. The federal estate tax tops out at 40%, states can add their own layer, and attorney fees, executor commissions, debts, and final medical bills push the cash demand higher.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2001 – Imposition and Rate of Tax When the numbers don’t balance, the analysis points toward solutions: life insurance for immediate cash, installment payment elections for estates with qualifying business interests, or restructuring the portfolio to hold more liquid assets. Without this, families end up selling real estate or business interests under pressure to meet tax deadlines.
Confirming Assets Are 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 works with the attorney to audit asset titling periodically, confirming that bank accounts, investment accounts, and real property sit in the name of the trust or carry proper beneficiary designations. This is where most plans quietly fall apart. Someone refinances a home and the new deed records in a personal name. A new brokerage account opens and never gets retitled. Nobody notices until after death, when fixing it requires a court order.
The Deadlines Your CPA Is Tracking
Several federal filings have firm deadlines after a death. Missing any of them can cost the estate real money, and tracking them is one of the clearest reasons to have a CPA involved before anything happens.
Form 706 and the Portability Election
When a married person dies without using their full $15 million exclusion, the surviving spouse can claim the leftover amount, called 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.10Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Estate Taxes This is one of the most commonly missed elections in estate planning.
Form 706 is due nine months after the date of death, with a six-month extension available through Form 4768.11Internal 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 the window can forfeit millions in unused exclusion and potentially expose the surviving spouse’s estate to the top federal estate tax rate of 40%.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2001 – Imposition and Rate of Tax Even estates below the $15 million filing threshold must file Form 706 to elect portability.12Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 706 One note on the GST tax: the generation-skipping transfer exemption also matches the $15 million basic exclusion for 2026, but it is not portable between spouses, so allocation during the first spouse’s estate administration matters.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2631 – GST Exemption
The 65-Day Rule for Trust Distributions
Tax years don’t always line up with distribution decisions. A trustee who realizes in February that the trust retained too much taxable income last year has a lifeline. 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.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 663 – Special Rules Applicable to Sections 661 and 662 The trustee must affirmatively elect this, and the amount is capped at the trust’s distributable net income for the prior year. A CPA reviewing trust income in January has a narrow but valuable window to retroactively fix a bad tax outcome.
Form 8971 Basis Reporting
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 it. 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 reported values as their basis when they later sell. Report a higher basis later and the IRS flags the inconsistency. The CPA makes sure the numbers match from the start.
The Final Form 1040
The decedent’s final Form 1040 covers income from January 1 through the date of death, with the same filing deadlines as any individual return — typically April 15 of the following year — and the usual extension options.16Internal Revenue Service. Filing a Final Federal Tax Return for Someone Who Has Died The CPA splits income properly between the final personal return, the estate’s income tax return, and any trust returns. Allocating across the right entities and tax years is where meaningful savings get captured.
When Hiring an Estate Planning CPA Really Matters
Not everyone with an estate plan needs a specialist CPA. The value climbs sharply with certain fact patterns.
Business owners are near the top of the list. When a closely held company makes up a large share of the estate, the CPA’s work expands into valuation, succession modeling, and buy-sell structuring. Transfer prices on gifted or sold shares must reflect fair market value and hold up under IRS review, because an artificially low valuation risks being recharacterized as a disguised gift. Where the business represents more than 35% of the gross estate (after deductions), Section 303 lets the corporation redeem enough stock to cover death taxes and funeral and administration expenses, with the redemption 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 Identifying that qualification and timing the redemption against tax payment deadlines is CPA work.
Families with trusts also benefit disproportionately. The compressed trust brackets mean the cost of inattention is high every year, and distribution planning, the 65-day rule, and the Section 645 election all require someone watching the return as it is prepared, not after.
So do families with large unrealized gains. The gift-versus-hold decision, loss harvesting before death, and Form 8971 basis reporting all turn on tax detail that general preparers often miss.
Charitable giving is another trigger. Charitable remainder trusts, qualified charitable distributions from IRAs for those age 70½ or older, and the coordination of deductions with required minimum distributions all involve math the CPA is positioned to run.
How to Choose an Estate Planning CPA
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 That Signal Specialization
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, the Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) credential signals 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.
Willingness to Work With Your Attorney
Estate planning is a team effort. A CPA who tries to work in isolation is a liability. Ask how they coordinate with estate planning attorneys, how they handle disagreements over strategy, and whether they have worked with the specific trust and tax rules in your state. The strongest 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.
Clear Fees
CPAs typically bill estate planning work hourly or through fixed fees for defined deliverables. Hourly billing fits ongoing advisory work and complex situations that evolve over time. A fixed fee gives 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 the work begins.