0223 Publ 5744 (PDF)

Official source: IRS Forms, Instructions & Publications (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5744.pdf), retrieved 2026-10-03. U.S. Government work (17 U.S.C. § 105).

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The Statistics of Income (SOI) Year of Death Study collects data reported on the Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return, for decedents who die during a single, focus calendar year. Returns filed for decedents who die in the focus year are sampled for 3 consecutive calendar years. The 2019 Year of Death data include estate tax returns filed in Calendar Years 2019 through 2021. Year of death estimates are useful because the estates were subject to the same tax law and economic conditions. The change in the Federal estate tax filing threshold from $5 million to $10 million, plus inflation adjustments, due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, can be observed when comparing the 2016 and 2019 data. In 2016, an estimated 13,429 filers reported gross estates of just over $197 billion; while in 2019, there were 5,314 filers who reported slightly more than $171 billion in gross estate for tax purposes.

• There were an estimated 5,314 estate tax returns filed for 2019 decedents. Combined, these estates reported $171.1 billion in total gross estate and paid slightly more than $14.6 billion in net estate taxes.

• Large estates, those reporting a gross estate greater than $50 million, made up 10.7 percent of 2019 decedent returns and accounted for 48.5 percent of combined gross estate.

• The 2019 decedents reported $61.4 billion in stock and $29.5 billion in real estate assets, which combined constituted nearly 53.2 percent of all assets held by estates.

• Pensions and 401(k)s represented the smallest category of asset holdings ($7.5 billion) reported by estates.

• Most decedents (63.3 percent) were male and were much more likely to be married at death than female decedents.

• A much smaller number of decedents (12.8 percent) were single or divorced at the time of death.

Gross Estate and Net Estate Tax, by Size of Gross

2019 Estate Tax Decedents, by Sex and Marital Status

[All figures are estimates based on a sample]

[1] "Other" includes decedents who were legally separated or divorced at the time of their deaths, as well as decedents whose marital status was unknown.

NOTE: Details may not add to total because of rounding.

Tax Statistics Publication 5744 (2–2023) Catalog Number 93813F Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service www.irs.gov