Published on aspirelegal.com | By Joseph E. Seagle, Esq.

A Florida couple sits down to talk about estate tax. They've got a paid-off home, a rental, a brokerage account and two IRAs, worth about $4 million. They've read that estate tax planning is urgent. What they don't know is that their estate likely owes no federal estate tax and no Florida estate tax at all, and that their family's real tax bill is hiding somewhere else.

Kiplinger's checklist of six estate tax strategies, written by planner Logan Queck, is a useful inventory. For a Florida family, the order changes. A Florida estate planning lawyer starts with what's actually taxed.

Start with the tax you'll actually face

There's one common exception worth checking. If you own real estate in another state, its estate or inheritance tax rules may reach that property, and some states start at much lower thresholds. That's a question for counsel licensed there.

For most Florida families below $15 million, the question that matters is how much income tax the people who inherit will pay.

Retirement accounts are the first bill

A traditional IRA or 401(k) is income waiting to be taxed. Most non-spouse beneficiaries now have to empty an inherited account within 10 years, and those withdrawals are ordinary income to them. Those accounts don't get a step-up in basis under IRC § 1014(c), because the money was never taxed in the first place.

There's a Florida bright spot here. Under Fla. Stat. § 222.21(2), qualifying retirement accounts are generally exempt from creditors, and that protection can follow the money into an inherited IRA after a direct transfer or eligible rollover. The statute has exceptions, including certain divorce and elective-share orders. So the account is often well protected and heavily taxed at the same time.

Roth conversions address the tax side. You pay the income tax now, in a year and at a bracket you choose, and your beneficiaries inherit an account that isn't taxed the same way when distributed. Whether that math works turns on your bracket today and your heirs' brackets later, which is a conversation for your CPA.

Charitable families have a cleaner option. From age 70½, a qualified charitable distribution lets you send up to $111,000 in 2026 directly from an IRA to a qualified charity. It counts toward your required minimum distribution and stays out of taxable income, though it can't go to a private foundation or a donor-advised fund.

Basis is where gifting advice goes wrong

Take a Florida rental bought decades ago for $150,000 and now worth $900,000. Give it to your daughter and she takes on your $750,000 of built-in gain, before depreciation is even counted. Leave it to her at death and that gain generally disappears. Under an old estate tax mindset the gift looked smart. With a $15 million exemption, it may simply be expensive.

The annual exclusion, $19,000 per recipient in 2026, remains a clean way to move cash. And § 1014(e) blocks the round trip: appreciated property gifted to someone within a year of their death and returned to you, or your spouse, doesn't get the reset.

Valuation discounts deserve the same second look. A family limited partnership can reduce what an asset is worth on paper for estate tax purposes, but that lower value also becomes the lower basis. Under the exemption, you may be paying for a smaller step-up.

The Florida deed that costs half a step-up

Many Florida married couples own their home and other assets as tenants by the entirety. For asset protection, that's often the right call, because a creditor of only one spouse generally can't reach the asset. Tax is the other side of the ledger.

Three facts belong in that conversation before anyone signs.

• The IRS hasn't approved it. A Florida practitioner memo notes there's no express blessing from the IRS or case law.
• You may give up creditor protection. Under § 736.1506, an obligation incurred by one spouse may be satisfied from that spouse's half, except as the homestead provisions of the Florida Constitution provide. For a physician, developer or anyone else with real liability exposure, that could be a bad trade.
• Divorce has its own rule. Under § 736.1508, the trust generally terminates and the assets divide equally, outside ordinary equitable distribution.

That's why this is an integrated decision. A plan that only saves tax can leave you exposed while you're alive, and a plan that only blocks creditors can overcharge your family after you're gone. Good asset protection strategies in Florida price both.

Where the rest of the tools fit

Irrevocable life insurance trusts and spousal lifetime access trusts still have real jobs: liquidity, creditor planning, and estates near or above the exemption. If yours is well below that line, ask what problem the trust solves before you pay to build it, because estate tax alone may not be the answer.

Frequently asked questions

Find out which tax your family will actually pay

Download our free Florida Heir Tax Audit, a 15-question diagnostic for sorting out your family's tax exposure and how it fits your asset protection plan. To work through your own titling and basis with a Florida asset protection attorney, call 844-842-2774 or visit aspirelegal.com.