For years, many families were told that on January 1, 2026, the federal estate-tax exclusion would fall by roughly half. That cut did not take effect.

The Internal Revenue Service now publishes a basic exclusion amount of $15,000,000 per person for deaths and gifts in 2026, up from $13,990,000 in 2025. The annual gift-tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026, unchanged from 2025. Those figures come from the IRS “What's new — Estate and gift tax” page. The statute behind them is Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025. The IRS calls that law the Working Families Tax Cuts Bill. Many law-firm alerts call it the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Same public law.

Some firm alerts describe the $15 million figure as the new baseline, indexed for inflation beginning in 2027, without a built-in sunset. That “permanent / indexed” reading has not been confirmed here from a line-by-line review of the Act. What the IRS has published is the 2026 number. A future Congress can still change IRC § 2010. The exclusion is not immortal.

Florida is simpler. The state does not collect estate tax on deaths on or after January 1, 2005. For most households in Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade, 2026 is not an estate-tax emergency.

What still fails, with or without a federal cliff, are Florida documents and titles.

A revocable trust avoids probate only of assets actually retitled into it, or made payable to it. An unfunded “living trust” still goes through court. A pour-over will is still needed for leftovers. Putting a homestead into a trust is a Florida-specific deed-and-language job; it is not a download. One 2025 clarification, SB 262 / section 736.151(3) (Chapter 2025-159), says that transferring homestead into a community property trust is not treated as a change of ownership for property-tax reassessment. That fix is for married settlor spouses. Unmarried partners cannot use a Florida community property trust, and the 2025 statute is not a general homestead-in-trust law.

Powers of attorney fail at the bank when the “superpowers” are missing. Under section 709.2202, gifts, beneficiary changes, survivorship, and certain trust powers generally require the principal to initial or sign next to each enumerated power. Unless the document says otherwise, an agent who is not a spouse, ancestor, or descendant generally may not use those powers to create an interest in the agent. That is a live issue when the agent is an unmarried partner.

Email and other content of electronic communications is a separate grant. Under chapter 740, a power-of-attorney agent gets that content only if the document expressly says so. An online-tool setting — a Google inactive-account manager, a Facebook legacy contact — can override a contrary will or power of attorney.

Marriage still turns on tools that partners do not have. Portability of unused federal exclusion is a surviving-spouse election on a timely Form 706. Unmarried partners cannot stack two exclusions. Tenancy by the entireties is a spousal title. In Loumpos v. Bank One, No. SC2024-1256 (Fla. Dec. 11, 2025), the Florida Supreme Court held that a spousal Florida bank account can be tenancy by the entireties even if one spouse opened it first and the other was added later. That decision is about Florida deposit accounts under section 655.79. It does not rewrite tenancy by the entireties for real estate, and it does nothing for unmarried joint accounts.

If the taxable estate is nowhere near $15 million, 2026 planning time is better spent on title, beneficiaries, powers of attorney, health-care surrogates, and trust funding than on emergency gifts aimed at a deadline that closed.

This article is general information, not tax advice or advice about a particular estate. The Law Office of Shawn C. Newman, P.A. offers a free consultation in person or by Zoom to review the Florida pieces that actually move — wills, funded trusts, powers of attorney, advance directives, and, for unmarried couples, cohabitation agreements. Call (954) 563-9160 or visit www.shawnnewman.com. 710 NE 26th Street, Wilton Manors, Florida 33305. Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade Counties.