A poster (sorry, forgot who) recently raised possibility of tax questions.
IIUC, SVM died in summer 2014, and her trust-titled prop's value was ~ $1.5 million then.
If SVM's 'taxable estate' value for fed est tax purposes was $1.5 mil at time of her 2014 death,
no fed estate tax would be assessed, per below in
blue ital. It's possible SVM's estate* was subject to fed est tax, but from what I've read, doubtful, imo. Thankfully, most of us do not have to worry about fed est tax liability (until we buy the winning powerball ticket. LOL. Now where's my lucky 4-leafed clover?)
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* Overly-simplified: If 1.5 mil, no fed est tax.
But if SVM had owned -
--- other property titled or registered in her name (e.g., real estate, such as condo, apts, rental houses, strip malls; bank a/c, brokerage a/c, stocks, annuities, mutual funds, bonds; IRA, Roth IRA, 401(k); certain life ins policies on her life, etc.), and/or
--- other non-registered/non-titled prop (e.g., diamonds, gemstones, silver coins, gold bullion, stamp collections, etc)
then the values of those other prop's are
added to the trust-titled prop to calculate 'gross estate' value for fed est tax.
Then certain
deductions (e.g., funeral expenses, certain charitable contributions,
certain prop. left to surviving spouse which SVM did not have) are made to calculate her 'taxable estate' for fed est tax purposes. If fed taxable est $ figure was < $ 5,340,000, then still no fed est tax liabiity.
If figure was (hypothetical) $ 6,000,000, then fed est tax would be assessed on $ 660,000 (at a certain % rate). That % rate for fed est tax is
not calculated on the entire (hypothetical) $6,000,000.
Now, time for tax wizards to swoop in, wave their wands, and say ^ is misinformation, and correct me. If so, pls do.
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*
".... up to a certain amount varying year by year can be given by an individual, before and/or upon their death, without incurring federal gift or estate taxes:[SUP][2][/SUP] $5,340,000 for estates of persons dying in 2014,...."
The "gross estate" for federal estate tax purposes often includes more property than that included in the "probate estate" under the property laws of the state in which the decedent lived at the time of death. The gross estate (before the modifications) may be considered to be the value of all the property interests of the decedent at the time of death.".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States. 
