Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: a deceased person’s final income tax return is due the normal April 15 of the year after death (extendable to October 15) — and the return splits the year at the date of death: income received before it goes on the final Form 1040; income the estate receives after it goes on the estate’s own return (Form 1041). Getting that split wrong is the most common DIY error in estate tax filing.
The rules that surprise people
A surviving spouse can still file jointly for the year of death — full joint brackets one last time — and the executor signs for the decedent. Refunds need Form 1310 unless a surviving spouse on a joint return is claiming it. Medical expenses paid within a year after death can be elected backward onto the final 1040 as if paid before death — often worth real money after an expensive final illness. And the estate’s 1041 has its own elections (including a fiscal year) that can defer and smooth tax — a genuinely useful lever when the estate holds income-producing assets.
What the survivor’s OWN taxes look like next year — the brackets halving while income does not — is its own planning problem: the deadlines calculator holds the dates, and the survivor-side decisions live in the site’s surviving-spouse guides.
Two returns, one split date, several elections – in a hard year.
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