Both of the problems below are solvable. Neither one solves itself.
Last reviewed: 14 August 2026
If you have no spouse and no children, Pennsylvania’s inheritance tax hits your estate harder than almost anyone else’s. The rate depends on the relationship between you and the person inheriting, not on the size of your estate, and there is no exemption threshold. Siblings pay 12%. Nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, and unmarried partners pay 15%, starting from the first dollar (72 P.S. § 9116). You also face a harder version of the agent problem, because the people most plans assume will step forward do not exist.
Pennsylvania inheritance tax is charged by relationship class.
| Who inherits | Rate |
|---|---|
| Surviving spouse | 0% |
| Children, grandchildren, parents, other lineal heirs (step-children included) | 4.5% |
| Siblings | 12% |
| Nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, unmarried partners, everyone else | 15% |
Read that bottom row again, then look at who is in your will.
$90,000
Roughly what the Commonwealth collects on a $600,000 estate left to a niece. A married client with children would never pay it.
$0
The exemption threshold in Pennsylvania. There is no floor. The first dollar is taxed the same as the last one.
1 year
How far before death an irrevocable trust generally has to be funded to be excluded in some circumstances (72 P.S. § 9107).
This is not an argument for changing who you love. It is an argument for planning deliberately, because there are real levers here: how assets are titled, life insurance (proceeds on the life of the decedent are generally exempt), charitable bequests (exempt), lifetime gifting, and in some circumstances an irrevocable trust funded more than a year before death, though those must be drafted carefully and are not right for everyone.
Estate planning quietly assumes a spouse or an adult child is standing by. Strip that assumption out and the questions get harder.
The answers are not the same as the answers for a client with three children nearby, and the plans should not look the same either. Options worth discussing include naming a professional or corporate fiduciary, building in successor layers rather than a single name, separating financial and medical authority between different people, and structuring the plan so that no single person has to carry all of it.
There is also a timing dimension that does not apply the same way to other clients. If the person you would name is roughly your age, the plan needs to survive them.
Pennsylvania gives an unmarried partner no automatic right to inherit, and taxes anything you do leave them at 15%. That combination catches people badly, and it is fixable while you are both here.
And so is the cost of getting it wrong. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to tell you whether there is money on the table.