Estate Duty has been Removed for Deaths on and after 15 Feb 2008
Estate duty is a tax on the total market value of a person’s assets (cash and non-cash) at the date of his or her death. It does not matter if the person has a will or not, the assets are still subject to estate duty.
The deceased person’s assets, as a whole, are called an estate. For the majority of estates, there is no estate duty payable as various exemptions are provided.
A person’s estate includes:
- Everything owned in his or her sole name
- The deceased person’s share of assets owned jointly with others
- Gifts made within five years before his or her date of death
- Gifts made anytime from which he or she retains some benefits (e.g. collecting the monthly rental income from a house even though the house was given to someone else 10 years ago)
- Assets held in trust from which he or she receives some personal benefit (e.g. bank accounts held in trust for children who are still minors)
