The current code taxes labor reliably while allowing capital, wealth, perks, and inherited appreciation to escape or defer tax. The Accord taxes progressively by broadening the base, applying higher rates at the top, and pairing broad consumption taxation with monthly rebates and luxury surcharges.
Today's effective estate-tax rate on the largest estates is approximately 17% (per IRS Form 706 statistics) — far below the 40% statutory headline. The gap is produced by valuation discounts (minority interest, lack of marketability, family-limited-partnership stacking), generation-skipping vehicles, GRATs zero-out, ILITs, and lifetime-gift architecture that moves wealth out of the estate base before death. Combined with stepped-up basis at death (closed by capital-gains-at-death), the architecture lets concentrated wealth transfer largely untaxed across generations.
The estate tax is the back-end settlement instrument. The architecture's task is to restore its effective rate close to its statutory rate by closing the routing channels that today bleed the base.
Settlement at death on the post-cap-gains wealth that flows to heirs. The v10.9 bracket structure is graduated and progressive at the top:
30% bracket: $10M – $50M 34% bracket: $50M – $250M 38% bracket: above $250M
(The top bracket is a Debt Sunset Governor dial — steppable up or down by the governor.)
The estate tax prepayment paid during life credits dollar-for-dollar against the estate-tax settlement. Where cumulative prepayments exceed the actual estate-tax liability, the volatility excess becomes a basis credit on inherited assets (allocated proportionally; transfers through normal succession; expires at the heir's death). Where prepayments fall short, the estate pays the difference at settlement.
The v10.9 top rate is 38% above $250M; the v10.2 $1B / 60% tier and the earlier 67% top are retired because the accession stamp (a separate heir-side instrument) now captures personal enrichment on its own lifetime ledger. Combined long-hold effect across the full settlement, post-gain-tax: the heir receives ≈ 28% intact at launch rates (0.48 CGAL × 0.62 estate × 0.95 accession). When the transfer skips a generation, GST is an additional LAYER on the accession tax (not a separate event sequenced after it).
Sequencing: (1) capital-gains-at-death realization (52% top); then (2) estate-tax settlement on the post-gain wealth (30/34/38%; top governor-adjustable); (3) cumulative prepayments credit dollar-for-dollar against the estate-tax bill; (4) the net wealth flows to the heir, whose lifetime-accession ledger is updated and accession tax applies (flat 5%); (5) if the transfer skipped a generation, GST is LAYERED on the accession (derived ≈39.0%) — adding to it rather than following it. Five instruments work as one settlement, not five parallel charges.
Estates above the federal exemption — a population of roughly the top 0.1% by wealth at the time of transfer. Below the exemption, no estate tax applies. Above the exemption, the bracket structure prices the wealth that transfers to heirs, with the Estate Tax Prepayment Plan credit offsetting prepayments already made during life.
Estates below the federal exemption — every typical inheritance, every typical farm-family transfer, every typical small-business succession. Surviving-spouse marital transfer continues. Direct-payment safe harbors (medical and educational expenses, IRC §2503(e)) continue. Mission-deployed assets in operating charities are not in the transfer base. The architecture targets the multi-million-and-up transfer base where the planning-industry routing games today produce systematic revenue loss.
Pending canonical scoring — paired with Estate Tax Prepayment Plan.
Estate-tax revenue at the v10.9 bracket structure is meaningfully larger than today's IRS Form 706 receipts because (a) the brackets price very-large estates more heavily (30/34/38% topping at 38% above $250M), (b) capital-gains-at-death has already taxed the lifetime appreciation (52% top), (c) the flat 5% accession stamp on the heir's lifetime receipts and the derived ≈39.0% GST on direct skips close the heir-side and skip-side routes, and (d) the estate-vehicle closures (GRATs, ILITs, FLP discounts, dynasty-trust deemed-accession) prevent the routing that today moves wealth out of the base. The combined four-instrument architecture produces effective long-run capture on accumulated wealth substantially above today's ~17% effective rate, but well below any single nominal top rate because the estate tax prepayment paid during life reduces the at-transfer balance and the instruments work in sequence.
See tax ladder · fiscal scoring
- Stepped-up basis at death
- Eliminated. Capital-gains-at-death prices lifetime appreciation before estate-tax settlement.
- Zero-out GRATs
- Walton/zero-out grantor-retained annuity trusts eliminated. Only substance-tested GRATs survive.
- ILITs
- Irrevocable life-insurance trust death benefits are included in the estate above the threshold.
- Generation-skipping
- GST architecture limited to one generation skip; cumulative-lifetime tracking applies.
- FLP / minority-interest discounts
- Family-limited-partnership minority and lack-of-marketability discounts restricted to substance-tested cases.
- Lifetime-gift architecture
- Annual exclusion retained; cumulative gifts above the canonical lifetime cap count toward the estate.
- Foundation / DAF transfers
- Large transfers to controlled tax-exempt entities face transfer-tax parity (see foundation-transfers stream); investment income at the entity then pays the Institutional Investment Excise.
- Cross-border / expatriation
- 38% exit tax + accrued-gain realization + Generational Repatriation Tax on returning heirs.
The estate tax depends on the closures elsewhere in the architecture; without them the bracket structure is bled by routing games.
- Estate Tax Prepayment Plan
- Estate-tax prepayment during life. Suspension mechanism prevents prepayments from exceeding projected estate tax. Volatility excess becomes basis credit.
- Capital-gains-at-death
- Realization of lifetime appreciation runs first, before estate-tax computation. The estate tax then prices the post-cap-gains transfer.
- Institutional Investment Excise
- Holds-side pricing of tax-exempt entity capital. Closes the foundation-routing exit from the estate-tax base.
- Lifetime gifts
- Cumulative-lifetime-gift parity at estate-bracket rates closes the gift-vs-estate timing arbitrage.
- HARO statute
- Two-generation heir-extension reach. Undeclared assets bequeathed remain bound to the estate; discovery within two heir generations brings the estate's distributions back into scope, capped at the heir's inheritance from the same estate.