Does a Revocable Living Trust Protect My Heirs From Paying Estate Tax?

Revocable Living Trusts do NOT shield one from estate tax, be it an heir or the grantor of the trust.   Your heirs actually don’t pay estate tax, anyway. YOUR estate pays the tax. A Revocable Living Trust (RLT) is included in YOUR estate. Thus if your estate is large enough, your RLT will be subject to estate tax, indeed. It’s an irrevocable trust that is not included in your estate. And will not be subject to tax to your heirs. Income received in the trust will be subject to tax, either to the estate or the heirs. But that’s a topic for another discussion. Estate tax is not an issue for the VAST majority of tax payers when it comes the Federal Estate tax. However if you live in a place like MA, your exemption is only $1mm! And that includes everything you own, your home, investments, even life insurance. The tax your heirs are going to pay is if they inherit an IRA, 401k, 403B. They will pay Ordinary Income tax on the distributions they take from those accounts.