^^^ This. It may allow you or the tax preparer experienced with Form 1041 to file one rather than two Form 1041s for the estate.… You can elect to file 1041s on a fiscal year instead of calendar year basis. I think the main rule is that fiscal years need to end on a month end. So if your father-in-law passed away on September 15th, then you could choose a 1041 fiscal year ending on August 31, 2026. That may be enough time for you to close out the estate and then only have to file one 1041 including everything from 9/1/2025 to 8/31/2026 instead of two (for calendar year 2025 and calendar year 2026). …
I used TurboTax to prepare the one fiscal-year Form 1041 for two simple estates. TT for Form 1041 is not as helpful as TT for Form 1040. The only complicated part for me was the real estate sale by the estate. It was not intuitive that there would be a loss on the primary residence sale (due to closing costs) as the property’s cost basis was stepped up to fair value after death (so gross sale proceeds = the adjusted cost basis as the property was sold shortly after death). This forum was helpful with the property loss calculation).
Statistics: Posted by HomeStretch — Wed Dec 10, 2025 2:11 am — Replies 3 — Views 400