"We're not wealthy. We just need simple wills."
I hear some version of that in a lot of first meetings. Then we start adding things up. The house in Westchester that has quietly doubled in value. The 401(k) and the IRA. A brokerage account. A life insurance policy nobody thinks of as an asset. Sometimes a share of a business, or a second place upstate.
By the time we finish the list, a couple who arrived expecting a two-document plan is often looking at a total north of $7 million. Nothing about their life changed during that conversation. What changed is that they now know where they stand relative to New York's threshold, and that changes what their plan should probably look like.
New York is one of a small number of states that still charges its own estate tax on top of the federal one. Its threshold is far lower than Washington's.
For deaths in 2026, the New York estate tax exemption, which the state calls the basic exclusion amount, is $7,350,000 per person. At the federal level, the exclusion for 2026 is $15 million per person.
That leaves a wide band, roughly $7.35 million to $15 million, where a family owes nothing federally and still has a New York bill. Most of my tax-planning conversations happen inside that gap.
Most taxes phase in gradually. New York's does not, quite.
If your taxable estate lands just above the exclusion, there is a narrow phase-out range. But once it exceeds the exclusion by more than 5%, or about $7,717,500 in 2026, the exclusion disappears completely. New York then taxes the estate starting from the first dollar, not just the amount above the threshold.
In practice, that means a fairly small difference in value can produce a very large difference in tax. It also means precision matters. For families sitting near that line, how assets are titled, valued, and directed can change the outcome substantially.
New York starts from your federal gross estate, which is broader than most people assume. It generally includes:
Life insurance is the one that catches people most often. Because the payout goes straight to a named beneficiary, it feels separate from the estate. If you own the policy, though, New York generally counts the death benefit in your gross estate anyway. A $1 million policy can move a family across a line they had no idea they were near.
There is no portability at the state level. Federally, if one spouse does not use their full exclusion, the survivor can generally claim what is left. New York does not permit that. Without planning, the first spouse's state exclusion can simply disappear. That is one reason trust structures such as a credit shelter trust come up so often in New York plans. They give a couple a way to preserve both exclusions rather than only one.
There is a three-year look-back on gifts. New York has no gift tax, which sometimes leads people to assume that late gifting solves the problem. But New York generally pulls taxable gifts from the three years before death back into the estate, subject to some exceptions. Gifting can absolutely be part of a strategy. It just usually needs to happen well before it feels urgent.
Sometimes, partly, eventually. Just less cleanly than people hope.
Two things are worth understanding. First, domicile is a factual question, not a change of mailing address; New York looks at where your life is centered. Second, even for a nonresident, New York continues to reach real property and tangible property located in the state. Keeping the family home in White Plains, or a rental property here, keeps part of the picture in New York regardless of where you file your income taxes.
If a move is genuinely on your horizon, that is an argument for reviewing your plan sooner rather than later, while more options are still open to you.
I want to be careful here, because the right answer is specific to the family. Depending on your assets, your marriage, and your goals for your children, the tools worth discussing might include:
Some families need very little adjustment. Others need a real restructuring. An attorney can look at your situation and tell you which category you are in.
What I would rather you not do is guess. There is also a timing element worth knowing: a New York estate tax return is generally due within nine months of death. That is not much runway for a family that is grieving and discovering the issue for the first time.
The families who handle this comfortably are almost always the ones who found out where they stood while there was still time to act on it.
Most of the people who end up doing tax planning with me did not come in for tax planning. They came in for wills, and we found something worth addressing while there was still room to address it.
If your combined assets are anywhere near $7 million, a short conversation is a sensible place to start. If you are not sure where you stand, which is the more common answer, that is even more reason to have it. I am Attorney David Parker, and I work with families in White Plains, New City, Yonkers, and Cortlandt on questions exactly like this one. The initial call is a brief conversation about your situation, not a commitment. Book a call to get started.
References: New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, "Estate tax" and Internal Revenue Service, "What's new — Estate and gift tax"
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