Noel Whittaker's latest column asks a question most wills never answer: when the tax bill lands, whose inheritance does it come out of?
A 90-year-old reader wrote to Noel Whittaker about a share portfolio worth around $1 million, built up over more than thirty years in names like CBA, Wesfarmers and Macquarie. His will is clear about who gets the shares. What it does not say is who pays the capital gains tax (CGT) that may now follow them.
Under capital gains tax changes due to start on 1 July 2027, the cost base of assets resets to their market value on that date, and the transfer of shares to an estate on death is treated as a realisation event. In plain terms: gains that built up before the reset can become taxable when someone dies, even though nothing has been sold and no cash has changed hands. The executor may have to sell part of the portfolio simply to pay the bill.
"This is one of the key features of a death tax, and is one of the reasons I describe the measure as a death tax by stealth."
Why this matters if you are in your 40s or 50s: you are the generation writing wills and being named as executor. If your will leaves specific shares to one child and "the rest" to another, the tax on that gift may quietly come out of the residue — shrinking one inheritance to fund another's. The fix is not panic-selling a long-held portfolio, which crystallises a tax bill today. It is asking your solicitor how your will apportions tax, and saying plainly what you intend. Noel also notes Treasury has acknowledged that death and other involuntary transfers need further work, so the detail may yet change.
Read the full article: Your will says who gets the shares, but who pays the tax? — Noel Whittaker, YourLifeChoices, 15 September 2026.
Wills, executors and the tax that travels with an inheritance are exactly what Wills, Death & Taxes Made Simple is written for — a plain-English guide to getting your estate in order before someone else has to sort it out. $22.95, buy direct from the author, in PDF and EPUB.