The Estate Tax Exemption Reached $15 Million. Audit Coverage on What's Left Fell to 2.6%.
Summary
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act permanently raised the per-person federal estate tax exemption to 15 million dollars for 2026, a change the Joint Committee on Taxation scored at 10.4 billion dollars over ten years. IRS data show the audit rate on the estate tax returns still required has fallen from 8.2% in tax year 2015 to 2.6% in tax year 2021, the most recent year with a final count.
Fewer estates were ever going to owe tax at these thresholds. But among the ones that still file a return, the 's own count of how many get examined has been falling for a decade — a decline that predates this year's exemption increase and continues past it.
The threshold has more than doubled since 2018
The basic exclusion amount has climbed every year since the TCJA doubled it in 2018, first on autopilot through inflation indexing, then again by statute this year. The IRS's Estate and Gift Tax FAQs page states the 2018 and 2020 figures directly; the 2025 and 2026 figures come from the 's 2026 inflation-adjustment release cited above.
View data as table
| 2018 | $11.18M | per person |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $11.58M | per person |
| 2025 | $13.99M | per person |
| 2026 | $15.00M | per person, permanent |
The Joint Committee on Taxation's official score of the enacted provision (JCX-34-25, July 1, 2025) puts the 10-year cost of this specific line — "extension and enhancement of increased estate and gift tax exemption amounts" — at $10.409 billion in forgone revenue between fiscal 2025 and 2034. That estimate is measured against the "current-policy baseline" Congress used to score the bill, which already assumed the TCJA-level exemption would continue; it is the cost of going further than that baseline, not the cost of the exemption existing at all. A companion JCT estimate filed three days earlier (JCX-30-25) shows the same line item and baseline convention.
Audit coverage has been falling since before the increase
The 's own 2025 Data Book tracks, for every tax year, what share of filed estate tax returns get examined — a figure the agency reports as "closed" plus "in process" exams, divided by total returns filed for that year. Because audits take years to open and close, the two most recent tax years in the table (2022 and 2023) are flagged by the itself as still inside the normal three-year statute of limitations, so their rates are artificially low and not yet comparable. Tax year 2021 is the most recent year outside that window — the last one the book treats as a settled count.
View data as table
| Tax year 2015 | 8.2% | 35,325 returns filed |
|---|---|---|
| Tax year 2017 | 6.4% | 32,658 returns filed |
| Tax year 2019 | 4.9% | 26,750 returns filed |
| Tax year 2021 | 2.6% | 34,367 returns filed, last final year |
Coverage fell by two-thirds in six years: 8.2% of tax year 2015 estate returns were examined, versus 2.6% of tax year 2021 returns — a decline that runs through the Trump and Biden administrations alike and predates the 2026 exemption jump. The number of returns filed barely moved over that stretch (35,325 in TY2015, 34,367 in TY2021); what changed is how many of them the ever looked at.
The takeaway
- The federal estate tax exemption is now $15 million per person, permanent, per the IRS — up from $13.99 million in 2025 and more than double the 2018 level.
- JCT's official score puts the 10-year cost of this year's increase at $10.4 billion, measured against a baseline that already assumed the higher TCJA exemption would continue.
- The 's own audit-coverage data show the examination rate on estate tax returns fell from 8.2% (tax year 2015) to 2.6% (tax year 2021) — a decline in enforcement capacity that predates and runs alongside the exemption increase, not a result of it.
This piece covers the federal estate tax only; it does not address state estate or inheritance taxes, which apply at lower thresholds in a number of states, or gift tax enforcement outside the estate tax examination program.
Sources
- Internal Revenue Service, " releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026, including amendments from the One, Big, Beautiful Bill" — states the $15,000,000 basic exclusion amount for 2026 versus $13,990,000 for 2025, citing Revenue Procedure 2025-32. irs.gov
- Internal Revenue Service, "Estate and Gift Tax FAQs" — states the 2018 ($11.18 million) and 2020 ($11.58 million) basic exclusion amounts directly. irs.gov
- U.S. Congress, Public Law 119-21 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), Section 70106 — the statutory text making the increased estate and gift tax exemption permanent and raising it for 2026 and later. congress.gov
- Joint Committee on Taxation, JCX-34-25 (July 1, 2025), "Estimated Revenue Effects Relative to the Current Policy Baseline of the Tax Provisions in 'Title VII — Finance' of the Substitute Legislation as Passed by the Senate" — line 6, the $10.409 billion 10-year cost of the estate and gift tax exemption enhancement, fiscal years 2025-2034. jct.gov
- Joint Committee on Taxation, JCX-30-25 (June 28, 2025) — an earlier companion revenue estimate showing the same estate and gift tax provision under the same current-policy baseline convention. jct.gov
- Internal Revenue Service, 2025 Data Book, Table 3-1, "Examination Coverage and Recommended Additional Tax After Examination, by Type and Size of Return, Tax Years 2015-2023" — the estate tax return audit coverage rates by tax year, and the footnote flagging tax years 2022 and 2023 as still within the statute of limitations. irs.gov
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Estates of people who die in 2026 owe nothing to the federal government unless what they leave behind, after lifetime gifts, exceeds $15,000,000 per person — up from $13,990,000 for deaths in 2025, per the IRS's own 2026 inflation-adjustment release, which cites Revenue Procedure 2025-32. The increase comes from Section 70106 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025, which made the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's doubled exemption permanent instead of letting it lapse at the end of 2025, and raised it further. A married couple can now shelter $30 million.