The estate tax is currently going through a wacky cycle based on a bit that was part of Bush's tax reduction thing a few years ago. Every year until 2009 the tax rate goes down and the point where it kicks in goes up. And that is before getting into the real nitty gritty. There are a bunch of special exceptions and tax modifiers that only apply in certain cases.

Then in 2010 there is no estate tax at all. But then in 2011 it jumps back to where it was in 2002. Bush did that with several taxes so he could claim they wouldn't have huge long term effects.

You can see the general details on [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax|Wikipedia].

I fully expect something will be done at some point to make some sense of this.

Jay