Phase 2: Risk Architecture · Fiduciary Liability.
Estate Duty Calculator
Understand the cost of dying.
Calculate estate duty, executor fees, and the total cash your estate will need at death, before your family has to find out the hard way.
AS Brokers – Estate Duty Calculator
Calculate estate duty, executor fees, and the total cash your estate will need at death.
Property, investments, cash, life cover paid to estate.
Mortgages, loans, debts.
This calculator provides a high-level estimate of estate duty and executor fees based on current SARS brackets (20% up to R30m, 25% thereafter) and standard 3.5% (ex VAT) executor rates. It is designed for awareness and does not replace formal estate planning.
Liquidity Stress Test
The figure above is a high-level estimate of the cash your estate must produce at death. SARS can claim 20% on the first R30 million and 25% on amounts above that, plus executor fees. All of it is payable in cash before heirs receive their inheritances.
Estate duty is calculated on the total value of your estate at death, including property, investments, policies, cash, and other assets, after allowable deductions. This calculator is not designed for precision. Its purpose is awareness: to expose the liquidity gap before it becomes a crisis.
You have just run a liquidity stress test. The next step is to reduce the number.
The Hidden Problem
What often catches families off guard is not poor investment performance, but the fact that growth inside an estate quietly increases the eventual tax bill over time. Capital locked in low-yield, traditional structures makes it worse: when the estate freezes, that capital cannot be turned into cash quickly enough. The liquidity crisis is exacerbated precisely when families can least afford it.
When sufficient liquidity is not available, estates are often forced to sell assets under pressure, delay finalisation, or disrupt long-term plans.
The good news is that estate duty exposure can usually be reduced legally and gradually, but only if planning starts early and is applied consistently.
Strategic Capital Migration
The first step in mathematically reducing your exposure is the annual donations allowance. South African tax residents may donate up to R100,000 per individual or R200,000 per married couple each tax year free of donations tax. By using this exemption and redirecting growth outside your personal estate (for example into a family trust), future estate duty can be reduced without drastic once-off decisions.
This result is not a prediction.
It is a planning signal. The size of the problem is shown above; the solution requires structured action over time.
Next Step
If you would like to see how annual donations, when invested correctly, can reduce estate duty and shift long-term growth outside your estate, the next calculator will walk you through that strategy.
Engineer Your Estate Reduction Strategy →