Filing a Deceased Person's Final Income Tax Return

It's important to know how to file a deceased person's Form 1040 or 1040-SR because unforunately, death doesn’t relieve one’s obligation to file a final federal income tax return.

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Benjamin Franklin coined the famous saying, “In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” But what about when death and taxes coincide, such as when someone dies during the year and has a tax filing obligation? 

When someone is deceased, the decedent's personal representative is generally required to file any final tax returns for the deceased person. This includes federal income tax returns that the decedent would have been required to file for the year of his or her death. A personal representative can be an executor, administrator, or anyone else who oversees the decedent’s property. 

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Joy Taylor
Editor, The Kiplinger Tax Letter

Joy is an experienced CPA and tax attorney with an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law. After many years working for big law and accounting firms, Joy saw the light and now puts her education, legal experience and in-depth knowledge of federal tax law to use writing for Kiplinger. She writes and edits The Kiplinger Tax Letter and contributes federal tax and retirement stories to kiplinger.com and Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. Her articles have been picked up by the Washington Post and other media outlets. Joy has also appeared as a tax expert in newspapers, on television and on radio discussing federal tax developments.