Are taxes due on money recieved from a life insurance policy?
In most instances, no income tax is due on life insurance proceeds. (A rare exception would be if the policy was sold, making it a capital asset. Very rare, though.) There is no estate tax on the insurance policy, per se. However, if the value of the decedent’s estate, including the proceeds of the policy, exceeds a certain amount ($2 million this year), then the estate would be liable to pay an estate tax. The proceeds of the policy would not be included in the value of the estate if the decedent had no incidents of ownership in the policy at death. An example would be a policy that was owned by an irrevocable trust and the decedent did not own the policy within 3 years of death.
