Title 26 › Subtitle Subtitle B— Estate and Gift Taxes › Chapter 11— ESTATE TAX › Subchapter A— Estates of Citizens or Residents › Part II— CREDITS AGAINST TAX › § 2013
When someone dies soon after inheriting property, the same assets could be hit by the estate tax twice. To soften that, an estate gets a credit for federal estate tax already paid on property the person received from someone who died within 10 years before, or 2 years after, them. If the earlier death was within 2 years, the full computed credit applies. After that it shrinks: 80 percent if the earlier death was in the third or fourth year before, 60 percent for the fifth or sixth year, 40 percent for the seventh or eighth, and 20 percent for the ninth or tenth. The credit is based on the share of the earlier estate's tax that relates to the transferred property, and it can't exceed the extra estate tax that property actually adds to the second estate. Property received from a spouse is reduced by any marital deduction the first estate claimed. "Property" includes any beneficial interest, such as a general power of appointment.
Full Legal Text
Internal Revenue Code — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
26 U.S.C. § 2013
Title 26 — Internal Revenue Code
Last Updated
Apr 6, 2026
Release point: 119-73