My mother passed away in July of 2016. She had $220,000 in a checking account, and my sister was a co-signor on that checking account. Being a co-signor on the account, my sister simply wrote checks to us (herself, my brother and I) for approximately US $70,000 each. There was no probate, nor was there an "official" transfer from the bank to us as beneficiaries. Are we going to get walloped by the IRS? In addition to the $70,000 we each received stocks and cash from another account that was done "officially", meaning they were notified of my mom's death and since we were listed as beneficiaries, the money stocks was transferred to accounts in our name.
