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Death of married couple in the same month

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azref2627

Junior Member
In Arizona.

My ex wife's parents live in a nursing home and she's afraid for them in the pandemic. How does the probate work if they die on different days but within the same month? Do they have to go through two probates? They haven't filed taxes for 2019 yet but most likely do not owe as they are under 24k combined. No pensions or anything. My ex wife covers the nursing home costs that Medicare doesn't at their facility.

They have little assets (1k) in bank accounts from SSI
They have an IRS lien from a few years back for 5k roughly
They have credit card debts in default and closed of 15k - think they have been written off by now.

Is my ex wife going to be responsible for their IRS debt? She seems to think it transfers to her and I can't find anything that says other.

Thanks
 


PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
They have no assets at all. And no your ex will not owe the IRS or CC a dime.

In fact, she will be under no duty to do anything with the estate when they pass.
 

azref2627

Junior Member
They do have a little assets in bank account. Who is responsible for doing it if not her? Does the state assign someone?
 

PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
They do have a little assets in bank account. Who is responsible for doing it if not her? Does the state assign someone?
Nobody has to do it. Sooner or later the IRS or some other debtor will take action to seize the assets.

My advice is based on the idea that their debts are in excess of their assets.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
In Arizona.

My ex wife's parents live in a nursing home and she's afraid for them in the pandemic. How does the probate work if they die on different days but within the same month? Do they have to go through two probates? They haven't filed taxes for 2019 yet but most likely do not owe as they are under 24k combined. No pensions or anything. My ex wife covers the nursing home costs that Medicare doesn't at their facility.

They have little assets (1k) in bank accounts from SSI
They have an IRS lien from a few years back for 5k roughly
They have credit card debts in default and closed of 15k - think they have been written off by now.

Is my ex wife going to be responsible for their IRS debt? She seems to think it transfers to her and I can't find anything that says other.

Thanks
The IRS debt does NOT transfer to your wife, however she would have to use whatever assets they might have after burial costs to pay towards the IRS debt. It doesn't sound like there would be any. The IRS is certainly aware that they have very little.
 

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
In Arizona.

My ex wife's parents live in a nursing home and she's afraid for them in the pandemic. How does the probate work if they die on different days but within the same month?
Technically the rule in Arizona is that a beneficiary has to survive the decedent by at least 120 hours in order to take from the decedent's estate. So suppose that Ann and Barry are married and Ann dies on May 10 and Barry dies on May 11. Because they died within 120 hours of each other none of Ann's assets will go to Barry's estate (and vice versa). If both of them have sufficient assets to warrant probate then probate would have be done for each each of them. But suppose that Ann dies on May 10 and Barry dies May 30. Now Barry died more than 120 hours after Ann and his estate would get his share of Ann's estate. Once again, if they both have sufficient assets to warrant probate then both estates would go through probate Note that if they had wills they could specify a longer period than 120 hours if they wanted. My state has the same rule and I recommend to most clients that they use a 30 day survival rule instead.

They haven't filed taxes for 2019 yet but most likely do not owe as they are under 24k combined. No pensions or anything. My ex wife covers the nursing home costs that Medicare doesn't at their facility.
Unless either of them had self-employment income they'd not need to file a federal income tax return. Note that if all their income is SSI then they don't have any filing requirement for that anyway because SSI is not taxable income

They have an IRS lien from a few years back for 5k roughly
They have credit card debts in default and closed of 15k - think they have been written off by now.
Assets they have at death would go first to pay funeral and administrative expenses of the estate, then to pay the tax lien, then to the credit cards and other debt they have. If they don't have enough assets to pay the taxes and debts then some creditors will go without. Your ex-wife won't have to pay those debts out of her pocket if things are done right.

Is my ex wife going to be responsible for their IRS debt? She seems to think it transfers to her and I can't find anything that says other.
This won't be a problem for her unless she takes assets from the estate and the estate doesn't pay the bill. If that occurs then her liability is only the value of the assets she took from the estate, not the entire tax bill (unless she took enough assets that it would pay the whole bill).
 

zddoodah

Active Member
How does the probate work if they die on different days but within the same month? Do they have to go through two probates?
Two individuals = two estates and (possibly) = two probates. As long as they die at least 120 hours (5 days) apart, it's no different than if they died five months apart or five years apart. If you google "simultaneous death in arizona," you'll find that the first couple articles will discuss the subject pretty well. Given the assets you described, it seems unlikely that formal probate would be needed, and it might not even be worthwhile to do anything with either of their estates.


They have an IRS lien from a few years back for 5k roughly
. . .

Is my ex wife going to be responsible for their IRS debt? She seems to think it transfers to her and I can't find anything that says other.
An IRS lien against what asset(s)? If your wife receives an asset that is subject to the lien, then she could lose the asset or be liable for the underlying debt up to the amount of the lien (this does not apply if she receives assets to cover/offset funeral/burial costs). However, debt does not otherwise pass from a deceased person to a living person.


They do have a little assets in bank account. Who is responsible for doing it if not her? Does the state assign someone?
No one is "responsible for doing" anything. Sometimes, if no one steps up to administer an estate of a person with substantial assets, the court will appoint a public administrator to do the job. However, that wouldn't happen for estates of little or no/negative value.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
The IRS only knows that currently their income is low. It doesn't know the extent to which they have assets since total assets do not get reported to the IRS.
True, but the IRS receives 1099-INTs, 1099-DIVs, 1099-Bs, Mortgage interest statements, and lots of other documentation that hint at a person's assets. The IRS might not know about a paid off real estate, but they are going to have an idea of just about anything else.

I have a client who has a tiny pension and a low social security amount. However, she has 20k in interest income every year, which indicates a rather sizeable amount of money in the bank.
 

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
True, but the IRS receives 1099-INTs, 1099-DIVs, 1099-Bs, Mortgage interest statements, and lots of other documentation that hint at a person's assets. The IRS might not know about a paid off real estate, but they are going to have an idea of just about anything else.
As a guy who was once revenue officer for the IRS and thus had the task to collect unpaid taxes I can attest to the fact that those documents don't give a very complete picture of the assets a person may have. I had to do some considerable investigation in some cases to discover the assets that the taxpayer had that were not reflected in IRP documents and tax returns. The IRP documents can given an indication of some of the assets a taxpayer may have, but lots of assets don't result in the generation of a a 1099 or other report to the IRS.
 

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