answer:“For deaths occurring in 2011, up to $5,000,000 can be passed from an individual upon his or her death without incurring federal estate tax.” Source Things were more complicated in 2010. The lawyer who is handling your mother’s estate should be able to take you through all the details. There may be other issues, such as step-up capital gains taxes, Fed. and state income taxes and crap you never heard of. We are in the middle of settling my mother’s estate and there are constantly small surprises. Her lawyers are in NY and she lived in MA. so the NY lawyers have to hire MA lawyers to interpret the MA laws. My father, who died in 1980, left three generation-skipping trusts that are also very complicated to unbraid, all of them in different ways. The lawyers are very happy, however. And I have a new and long vocabulary list of legal terms.