Updated August 4, 2026. Quick answer for New Jersey: New Jersey still levies an inheritance tax, and the practical obstacle is not usually the rate — it is the waiver. Banks and brokers will not release a dead person’s assets without one, and only the Division of Taxation can issue it. The estate tax, separately, has been gone since 2018.
This is not the estate tax, and the difference decides who pays
An estate tax is charged to the estate on its whole value before anything is distributed. An inheritance tax is charged to each beneficiary on what they personally receive, at a rate set by how they were related to the person who died. Two people inheriting equal shares of the same estate can owe completely different amounts. The full comparison, and which states levy which, is on inheritance tax by state.
Who it reaches
New Jersey imposes an Inheritance Tax on the transfer of assets from a deceased person (decedent) to someone else (beneficiary).
— New Jersey Division of Taxation
Two types: resident and non-resident, based on where the decedent legally lived at death. A non-resident decedent who owned certain New Jersey property (usually real estate) may be subject to New Jersey Non-Resident Inheritance Tax.
Where the beneficiaries lived is not a factor.
— New Jersey Division of Taxation
That last line closes a common hope: moving to another state does not take a beneficiary out of New Jersey inheritance tax. What matters is where the decedent lived, and for non-residents, what New Jersey property they owned.
The estate tax is gone. The inheritance tax is not.
New Jersey Estate Tax is no longer imposed for individuals who died on or after January 1, 2018.
— New Jersey Division of Taxation
These two are constantly conflated, including by people who should know better. The 2018 repeal was the estate tax only.
The waiver is the real obstacle
Waivers (Form 0-1) can only be issued by the Inheritance Tax Branch of the NJ Division of Taxation. It is not a form you can obtain online or fill out yourself.
— New Jersey Division of Taxation
A waiver is required to transfer an IRA held at a bank or financial institution (IRAs in the form of an annuity administered by an insurance company do not require waivers), brokerage accounts (total date-of-death value only, not individual securities) and 529 plans held at a financial institution. N.J.A.C. 18:26-11.1 – 11.25.
Two things make this survivable:
Form L-8 (self-executing waiver for certain Class A beneficiaries) can be substituted for Form 0-1 to obtain the release of financial (non-real estate) assets.
— New Jersey Division of Taxation
An institution, association, organization, corporation, or person holding a decedent’s funds may release up to 50 percent of the entire amount of funds on hand, without a waiver
— New Jersey Division of Taxation, Blanket Waiver
So a bank may release up to half the account to an executor, surviving joint tenant or legal representative without any waiver at all — which is usually enough to pay the funeral and keep the household running while the rest is sorted out. Ask for the blanket waiver by name; counter staff frequently do not volunteer it.
What we are not telling you
We are not publishing New Jersey’s beneficiary classes or its rate schedule. We could not read the class definitions and rate table at an official New Jersey source in this pass, and on a page where a wrong class changes the bill by tens of thousands of dollars, a figure we had not read would be worse than none. Ask the Inheritance Tax Branch which class a beneficiary falls into, and ask in writing.
What actually reduces this
Inheritance tax is charged on what passes to a beneficiary, so the levers are about who receives and how, not about shrinking the estate at the last minute. Assets with a named beneficiary or a survivorship feature still count in most of these states — do not assume a transfer-on-death designation escapes it. The instruments themselves: transfer-on-death deeds by state, and the beneficiary-designation mistakes that cost the most. If probate is the live question rather than the tax, what probate costs in New Jersey is the arithmetic on that side.
Rates and exemptions read at the state’s own revenue department or statute and cited above, not legal or tax advice. Inheritance tax turns on a relationship and a date of death this page cannot see, and legislatures change these figures — check the current year before you act on a number. We sell nothing on this page and earn nothing from it.