Filing taxes for deceased

[ldebondt]

Trying to file taxes 2020 for deceased (2019)individual who still received retirement benefits in 2020 that were direct deposited.

[JanAretdCPA · Accepted solution]

Hello.  Your deceased individual stopped having a personal tax liability on the date of death in 2019.  Any Income received after the date of death is earned by the estate of the deceased person.  

Income received by an estate is reported on Form 1041, U.S. Income Tax Return for Estates and Trusts.

In order to do this, the estate must apply to the IRS for an EIN - Employer Identification Number (even though the estate will not be employing anyone - any tax entity that is not a person uses an EIN instead of SSN)

Just to make things more complicated, the individual taxpayer ceases to exist on the date of death, and the estate comes into existence on the date of death - therefore the estate's tax year starts on that date, not on January 1.  And that's a whole other subject, too. 

As you may have figured out by now, you need professional help, because there are a lot of moving parts and issues which bear no resemblance to doing taxes for a person.  

Good luck!