At the state level, there is not an estate tax in Texas to be concerned about by anyone, but at the federal level there is. However, less than 1% of the population in Texas or even in the United States needs to worry about this. This is because even though an estate tax still exists on the books for the IRS, the size of the exemption is so large that it applies to very few people in the aggregate.

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In 2017 the federal exemption for individuals was $5.49 million, and for couples it was $10.98 million. This was already such a big exemption that relatively few people in the country needed to worry about their estate getting taxed. Then in December 2017 a law was passed to that basically doubled the already massive exemption available. The new exemption amount started in the 2019 tax year, and now in 2024 it is  $13.61 million for individuals and $27.22 million for married couples. And this amount is scheduled to continue going up every year to keep up with inflation, although unless Congress passes a new law then at the end of 2025 this higher exemption amount will sunset back to the prior Tax Cuts and Jobs Act level of $5 million, adjusted for inflation.

So, needless to say, with the current set of tax laws, very few of us need to be concerned at all about our estates being taxed at the federal level when we die. So, at least as for estate tax concerns are involved, for most of us a will is all you really need, and there is no need to use trusts or LLC’s or an other estate planning tools available in order to protect your estate from potential estate taxes. (Having said that, there still may be other valid reasons to create trusts or LLC’s for your estate plan.) Of course things like this can change over time, so always make sure to keep up with any major changes to estate tax laws.