Whether or not you leave the surviving spouse makes a different.

Now you may want to leave everything to your surviving spouse and then on to the children, that's natural.

Surviving spouses who are not citizens used to have a way around the tax.

That way the surviving spouse has enough wealth at hand to provide for his or her needs until death.

But then there might be little or nothing left to pay the expenses of the surviving spouse.

Anyone 65 years or older (in some instances 62, particularly a surviving spouse).

He decided that an additional $50,000 each would be awarded for any surviving spouse or child.

Her surviving spouse, the one she'd obviously done everything to make sure he didn't get a penny.

Property left to a surviving spouse remains, as before, free of inheritance tax.

But when the surviving spouse dies, the estate could then be subject to tax.

"The idea," she said, "is to have enough in investments to take care of the surviving spouse and children."

A child's share would be determined by having regard to the fact that there was more than one surviving spouse.

The contracts also set benefits for 390,000 retirees and surviving spouses.

Annuities can also offer some income to a surviving spouse.

The surviving spouse is also subject to impediments of marriage that result.

It ends on death and the surviving spouse takes all by survivorship.

But many of the federal laws that mention marriage do so to extend medical or financial support to surviving spouses.

This includes a case in which the companion died and the surviving spouse received the pension.

Certain items of property left to the surviving spouse.

"That creates a lot of stress for surviving spouses and children who are grieving."

When death ends a marriage, the surviving spouse inherits everything free of tax.

But surviving spouses shouldn't start rubbing their hands together.

If you are married and die before retiring, we pay your surviving spouse a survivor benefit.

More money goes to surviving spouses than in earlier years, but less money is going to charity.

Trust A holds property that remains accessible to the surviving spouse during his or her life.