Marital Deduction

Marriage comes with a lot of benefits. We have someone to laugh and cry with, we have someone to potentially build a family with, and we have a built-in date to those painful office parties. And if that wasn’t enough, another benefit comes in the form of what we call a “marital deduction”: spouses can pass unlimited amounts of wealth back and forth without having to pay any federal estate taxes.

Most of the time, we see this come into play with wills, trusts, and other death-related money stuff. If, for example, we leave our estate to our spouse when we pass, he or she doesn’t have to pay estate taxes on the amount, and they also don’t have to wait for the probate process to clear before they can access the account.