So, wait, I'm sorry -- unrealized gains are taxed in the inheritance tax? That is, I'd get taxed on the full current value of my parents' investments?

Yes, just as if it were income.

the rhetoric around the death tax will soon make it harder to create an inter vivos trust without taxing it

Okay, why am I not hearing about that in the news? Disregarding for the moment my habit of avoiding the news as much as possible. But I feel like I am not only uninformed, but misinformed, somehow.

I am not categorically opposed to double dipping, what with my tax and spend leanings.

just as if it were income.

Isn't it income? If someone hands me money above a certain amount, whether it's my parents, my boss, or some random rich wacko who thinks I'm just that cute, I get taxed on it. Why would that change just because the giver is dead?

There aren't enough random rich wackos who think I'm cute in my life....

We've inherited the loan that my late FiL took out to pay for DH's college. Apparently. Though I think thay are saying that DH was a co-signer or guarantor or something, not just an heir (he signed over his share of the estate to his mother).

You and me both, tommyrot. But I live in hope. And, at the moment, in debt.

Cindy, good to know. That's not what I had heard before. I'll still be losing any possible inheritance since their houses (which are both of value) will likely belong to the bank and/or other creditors, but perhaps not their debt.

One of my colleagues was in a horrible situation (on many levels) when her 30-year-old son committed suicide. He had all kinds of debt, and she and her husband ended up being responsible for most of it. It must have been debt they had cosigned on or something.

If someone hands me money above a certain amount, whether it's my parents, my boss, or some random rich wacko who thinks I'm just that cute, I get taxed on it. Why would that change just because the giver is dead?

I think it's more a question of if someone hands you a necklace of huge expensive diamonds or a racehorse or mansion or something and you have to sell it to pay the taxes on it. At least, that's where it gets murkier for me.

In a taxation side step, student loan debt is oodles of fun, too. Hubby's ex, the Hellbimbo, talked him into putting her student loan together with his under his name right before she filed for divorce (she's an old hand at divorce). The collection trolls said a couple of years ago, "You're unemployed? We'll garnish your wife's wages." I said, "Good luck, bucky, I didn't even know him when that debt was incurred, and this isn't a community property state." "Oh," they said, chagrined that they were dealing with someone with a brain.