The Internal Revenue Service is out with its 2024 Data Book.
The 30th annual IRS edition has it all: a chart showing when people's individual tax returns actually came in, a pie chart indicating how satisfied people said they were with IRS service, data on audits, and tables of state-by-state data on topics such as the number of tax returns that were filed and the amounts of various types of taxes that taxpayers actually paid.
One of the tables shows how many estate tax returns taxpayers in each state filed in federal fiscal year 2024, and another table shows how much estate tax the filers in each state paid.
The tables don't show how many deceased taxpayers used trusts or other means to avoid paying estate taxes, and they don't show whether people paid estate taxes because they failed to use trusts and other arrangements to plan for estate taxes; planned well but still owed something to the IRS; or simply believed it was their civic obligation to pay estate taxes.
But the tables do show that the filers included in the estate tax data had taxable federal estates with value over $13.61 million for an individual or $27.22 million for a married couple.
The averages ranged from about $173,000 in Iowa, up to more than $3 million, in one state out west. Half the states had an average estate tax payment greater than $735,000.
Some of the people who paid those taxes may have used life insurance or special investment funds to pay the bills, or wish they'd done that.
For a look at data for the 12 states with the highest average estate tax payment per estate tax return, see the gallery above.
For data on all 50 states and the District of Columbia, see the chart below.
The U.S. total includes returns filed by people who live outside the 50 states or the District of Columbia.
Number of Estate Tax Returns | Estate Tax Revenue | Average Estate Tax Revenue per Estate Tax Return | Estate Tax Revenue as Percentage of Total Federal Tax Revenue | |
| Alabama | 228 | $343,286,000 | $1,505,640 | 0.91% |
| Alaska | 34 | $36,493,000 | $1,073,324 | 0.50% |
| Arizona | 424 | $318,033,000 | $750,078 | 0.40% |
| Arkansas | 110 | $266,918,000 | $2,426,527 | 0.63% |
| California | 5,091 | $8,267,843,000 | $1,624,012 | 1.03% |
| Colorado | 509 | $390,907,000 | $767,990 | 0.45% |
| Connecticut | 570 | $413,439,000 | $725,332 | 0.60% |
| Delaware | 88 | $124,828,000 | $1,418,500 | 0.61% |
| District of Columbia | 101 | $75,342,000 | $745,960 | 0.17% |
| Florida | 2,553 | $3,854,300,000 | $1,509,714 | 1.18% |
| Georgia | 531 | $373,342,000 | $703,092 | 0.26% |
| Hawaii | 199 | $74,129,000 | $372,508 | 0.65% |
| Idaho | 125 | $40,020,000 | $320,160 | 0.22% |
| Illinois | 1,332 | $820,731,000 | $616,164 | 0.37% |
| Indiana | 323 | $203,833,000 | $631,062 | 0.24% |
| Iowa | 560 | $97,100,000 | $173,393 | 0.27% |
| Kansas | 271 | $229,616,000 | $847,292 | 0.73% |
| Kentucky | 180 | $174,930,000 | $971,833 | 0.35% |
| Louisiana | 149 | $109,491,000 | $734,839 | 0.26% |
| Maine | 106 | $71,289,000 | $672,538 | 0.59% |
| Maryland | 656 | $280,886,000 | $428,180 | 0.26% |
| Massachusetts | 1,403 | $404,432,000 | $288,262 | 0.26% |
| Michigan | 466 | $371,808,000 | $797,871 | 0.34% |
| Minnesota | 631 | $245,269,000 | $388,699 | 0.20% |
| Mississippi | 91 | $117,632,000 | $1,292,659 | 0.77% |
| Missouri | 435 | $207,719,000 | $477,515 | 0.22% |
| Montana | 129 | $34,251,000 | $265,512 | 0.32% |
| Nebraska | 255 | $99,421,000 | $389,886 | 0.23% |
| Nevada | 214 | $526,143,000 | $2,458,612 | 1.38% |
| New Hampshire | 152 | $144,658,000 | $951,697 | 0.85% |
| New Jersey | 1,028 | $510,763,000 | $496,851 | 0.28% |
| New Mexico | 82 | $85,595,000 | $1,043,841 | 0.67% |
| New York | 1,915 | $2,552,804,000 | $1,333,057 | 0.66% |
| North Carolina | 798 | $1,018,114,000 | $1,275,832 | 0.81% |
| North Dakota | 118 | $77,395,000 | $655,890 | 0.79% |
| Ohio | 653 | $540,112,000 | $827,124 | 0.26% |
| Oklahoma | 182 | $177,494,000 | $975,242 | 0.45% |
| Oregon | 769 | $367,314,000 | $477,651 | 0.88% |
| Pennsylvania | 1,116 | $852,017,000 | $763,456 | 0.48% |
| Rhode Island | 166 | $29,062,000 | $175,072 | 0.15% |
| South Carolina | 357 | $194,342,000 | $544,375 | 0.49% |
| South Dakota | 139 | $28,068,000 | $201,928 | 0.22% |
| Tennessee | 434 | $458,231,000 | $1,055,832 | 0.45% |
| Texas | 1,815 | $1,945,021,000 | $1,071,637 | 0.47% |
| Utah | 188 | $98,055,000 | $521,569 | 0.26% |
| Vermont | 57 | $16,270,000 | $285,439 | 0.27% |
| Virginia | 623 | $565,096,000 | $907,056 | 0.46% |
| Washington | 1,052 | $260,952,000 | $248,053 | 0.16% |
| West Virginia | 40 | $13,374,000 | $334,350 | 0.15% |
| Wisconsin | 473 | $134,903,000 | $285,207 | 0.19% |
| Wyoming | 69 | $210,811,000 | $3,055,232 | 2.75% |
| United States | 31,516 | $29,416,540,000 | $933,384 | 0.58% |
Credit: Kzenon/Shutterstock
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