My parents had recently passed and I am using their Elder Law Attorney to help me walk through the Probate maze, which I understand can be different in every State. Luckily the State doesn't have an inheritance tax, but some States do have such a tax.

And when it comes to income taxes, thank goodness my parents had a CPA they used for their taxes for decades. As this wouldn't be a Turbo Tax moment.

Why does it have to be so complex after a person passes? The documents I got from Probate is like having a ton of homework, on a subject you never read about, and without getting any credit for the work completed :P

Savvy writing - I am thankful for the specifics . Does anyone know if my company could obtain a template IRS 1040-ES copy to work with ?

You are right, Crow. Try to obtain that death certificate in time for the bank, S.S. and other creditors to take a look. you'll wait long while. It's been my experience that these institutions do not wait for the death certificate; they go ahead and start cancelling ....especially Social Security.

N1K2R3, I believe you will need a copy of the death certificate before going to the bank to deal with those concerns. Once the person has died, social security needs to be informed so that those payments will cease.

laurabutler28,

Once the person is dead, the POA no longer has the authority to do the person's taxes. The executor of the estate has the authority to do that.

Thanks so much for this information! After my sister passed in May of 2014, and my mother had a breakdown and moved in with me and she was my sister's executor on her estate, the easy to follow steps helped me breeze through this unexpected task! :) Who knew??? Luckily, my sister didn't have any estate to speak of and owed no taxes. All's well now! Thanks again for your help!

My loved one didn't have an executor, nor had they needed to file for a tax return for the last 20+ years of their life. Hopefully there would be nothing that would need to be filed.

Good article, however, because it takes so long to order the Death Certificate of the deceased from the medical office/hospital, how does one executor stop the automatic withdrawals and payments of the deceased from leaving the deceased's checking account? The executor can not shut down the checking account, because important withdrawals such as the car payments, life insurance premiums, etc . would be affected by this sudden move.

Can a POA handle the taxes?

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you for this very useful information.