NC – No Estate Tax for 2010

S.L. 2011-5 updated the State’s conformity date to the Internal Revenue Code from May 1, 2010 to January 1, 2011. Subsequently, S.L. 2011-330 (passed on June 27, 2011) clarified that the North Carolina Estate Tax is effective and applies to the estates of decedents dying on or after January 1, 2011. For North Carolina purposes there is no estate tax for decedents dying in 2010. North Carolina law conforms to the higher exclusion amounts and gives estates that chose to pay federal estate tax for 2010 the same stepped-up basis for North Carolina purposes as for federal purposes for the property passing through the estate.

This also makes clear that North Carolina’s current estate tax exemption is $5 million.