re: Can someone explain the “ins and outs” of inheritance tax for me?

Would depend if the person is married and whether their spouse used up their exclusion amount. You can xfer unused spousal exclusion amounts from one spouse to the other.

LINK

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For example, suppose the first-to-die spouse leaves $3,250,000 of assets passing through his estate to children. Further, suppose that the survivor has $7,000,000 of assets of her own. By filing a federal estate tax return for the first-to-die spouse, the “unused” $2,000,000 of federal estate tax exclusion (DSUE) amount can be “claimed” and used by the surviving spouse to shelter otherwise taxable gifts or inheritances flowing from the survivor. Thus, in this example, after the DSUE is “claimed” by the surviving spouse, she would have an effective federal estate and gift tax exclusion amount of $7,250,000 (his/her “own” $5,250,000 exemption, plus the DSUE of $2,000,000 from the first-to-die spouse).

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