For years, families with significant wealth planned around a deadline that never came. The federal estate tax exemption was supposed to be cut roughly in half after 2025, and many Oklahoma estate plans were built, or rushed, to beat that cliff. Congress removed it instead. If your plan was designed for rules that no longer exist, 2027 is the year to bring it up to date.
The $15 Million Exemption Is Now Permanent
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption is $15 million per person for 2026, or $30 million for a married couple. It is now permanent rather than scheduled to drop. It is also indexed for inflation, so the 2027 figure will be somewhat higher once the IRS publishes its annual adjustments this fall. Anything above the exemption is still taxed at 40%.
Oklahoma imposes no estate, inheritance, or gift tax of its own. For many families, that means estate tax is no longer the main threat. For families whose assets approach or exceed $30 million, or whose business and mineral interests are growing quickly, it still is.
Old Formula Clauses Can Send Money to the Wrong Place
Many wills and trusts drafted over the past two decades split the estate with a formula at the first spouse’s death. An amount equal to the exemption goes into a bypass trust, and the rest passes to the surviving spouse. When the exemption was a few million dollars, that split made sense. At $15 million, the same formula can push nearly everything into a trust the surviving spouse cannot freely control. It can also cost the family a second step-up in income tax basis on the assets held in that trust. If your documents tie a gift to “the exemption amount,” they need a fresh look.
Don’t Skip the Portability Election
When the first spouse dies, the unused exemption can pass to the survivor, but only if the estate files a federal estate tax return electing portability. That return is required even when no tax is owed. Families often skip it because there’s no tax due. On a large estate, that shortcut can expose millions of dollars to tax later.
Oklahoma’s Trust Laws Have Changed
Oklahoma has updated its trust laws in the last two years. It adopted the Uniform Directed Trust Act and a digital assets law in November 2024, and the Uniform Trust Code took effect in November 2025. Older trusts remain valid. Still, trustee duties, notice requirements, and the roles of trust advisors and protectors may now work differently than your documents assume.
For asset protection, Oklahoma’s Family Wealth Preservation Trust remains a distinctive tool. It requires an Oklahoma bank or trust company as trustee and a majority of the trust’s value in Oklahoma assets, and each grantor can have only one. If you set one up years ago, confirm it still meets those requirements.
Your 2027 Review Checklist
Before the new year, sit down with your plan and check:
- Any formula clauses tied to the federal exemption amount.
- Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities. These override your will, so outdated forms can undo careful planning.
- Your choice of trustees, executors, and guardians, and whether those people are still the right fit.
- Succession and buy-sell arrangements for any closely held company. Our guide on what happens to your business when you die covers this in more detail.
- Annual gifting. You can give $19,000 per recipient in 2026, or $38,000 with spousal gift splitting, without touching your lifetime exemption.
- Real estate outside Oklahoma, since some states impose their own estate tax at far lower thresholds.
Review Your Plan With a Tulsa Estate Planning Attorney
A plan built for the old rules can still pass your wealth, but not necessarily to the right people, in the right form, or at the lowest tax cost. Ken Brune has spent more than 45 years helping Tulsa families and business owners with wills, estates, and trusts. His work includes plans that account for family businesses, mineral interests, and real estate, not just bank accounts.
If your estate plan hasn’t been reviewed since the exemption rules changed, now is the time. Contact Brune Law Firm to schedule a review before 2027.