What is included in the fee for estate & trust returns?
The terminal and estate returns, date-of-death valuations by asset and currency, and the clearance that has to issue before the representative can safely distribute.
What would make estate & trust returns cost more than the standard tier?
Assets in more than two jurisdictions. Each one adds its own valuation, its own filing and its own clearance timetable, and the slowest one sets the schedule.
Is the fee really fixed?
Yes, for the scope quoted. If the scope changes — another year appears, an entity turns up, a certificate becomes necessary — we re-quote before doing the work, so there is never an invoice you have not already agreed to.
Who has to file a tax return for someone who has died?
The personal representative does, and in practice it is more than one return. There is the deceased's final return covering the period to the date of death, and then returns for the estate itself covering income that arises afterwards while assets are still being administered. Those are different filings with different due dates and different rules, and the representative is personally exposed if they are missed. The quote for this work sets out which returns the estate needs before anything begins, so the representative knows the whole scope rather than discovering it one filing at a time.
What is a terminal return and how is it different from the estate return?
The terminal return is the deceased's own final return, reporting income up to the date of death. Everything arising after that date belongs to the estate, which is a separate taxpayer with its own return. The boundary matters because income received after death is not automatically estate income, and property is valued at the date of death for the terminal return and carried into the estate at that value. Sorting income either side of the line, asset by asset, is most of the work in a first-year estate engagement.
Can I distribute the estate before the clearance comes through?
It is the one step worth waiting for. Clearance is the authority confirming it has no further claim on the assets being distributed, and it is issued after the relevant returns are filed and assessed, not before. A representative who distributes first and finds a liability afterwards can be left personally answerable for it with the money already gone. The engagement therefore treats clearance as the finishing line rather than an optional extra, and the sequence of filings is planned so the request can be made as early as the assessments allow.
Why do you need date-of-death values for every asset?
Because the date of death is the measuring point for everything that follows. It fixes what the terminal return reports, the cost at which the estate takes each asset on, and therefore what gain arises when the estate later sells. Values assembled afterwards from recollection do not survive review, and the representative is the one who has to stand behind them. So the engagement values asset by asset, in the currency the asset is held in, records the basis and the source beside each figure, and keeps that schedule with the filed returns.
Is the trust return quoted separately from the estate return?
It is scoped separately, because it is a separate filing obligation with its own information requirements, but it is usually quoted in the same written engagement so the representative sees one figure for the year rather than a sequence of invoices. Where a trust arose under the will and continues after the estate is wound up, its later years are a fresh engagement each year. We say at the outset which filings fall inside the fixed fee for this year and which will recur.
The estate holds property in another country. Does that change the fee?
Yes, and it is the most common reason an estate engagement moves beyond the standard tier. A second country means a second set of valuation evidence, currency translation on every affected figure, possibly a filing in that country, and a question about relief for tax paid there against tax due here. None of that is volume work; it is a second technical position that has to be settled and documented. We identify it during scoping, before the fee is agreed, so it does not appear later as an overrun.
Which country do I pay tax to first?
Generally the source country — where the income arises — taxes first, often by withholding before you receive it. Your country of residence then taxes the same income and credits what the source country took. That order is why timing matters: a residence-country return filed before the source-country tax is settled has nothing to credit yet. Getting the sequence right is most of the work. See international tax planning.
Do American citizens living abroad have to pay taxes?
American expats and green card holders need to file US returns for life, and many of them pay little or no US tax once the relief is applied — but the filing is what unlocks the relief, so the two questions have different answers. The exclusion for foreign earned income, the credit for foreign tax already paid and the treaty between the two countries between them usually leave the total at roughly the higher of the two countries' tax rather than the sum. Skip the return and none of it applies. See Americans abroad.
