[robinnoreen]

My father is 90, my mother is 89, both will have birthdays later this year. They own, outright, 2 pieces of property. One a home in So. California and one a vacation cabin in
Minnesota. The California home is approximately worth $300,000.00 and the cabin is
About $200,000.00. My 2 brothers will inherit the California home and my 2 sisters and
Myself the cabin in Minnesota. If they Quit Claim the 2 properties to us now will we have to
Pay any kind of taxes, Estate or Inheritance Taxes?

[ebaines]

The federal estate tax and gift tax laws are essentially designed to work together in a way that essentially eliminates any differences in tax consequences between gifting property and passing it on through inheritance. Based on the value of these properties it really doesn't matter whether your parents gift them to their children now, or include them as assets to be passed on upon their deaths - in either case there is no tax due, as the value of the properties fall below both the estate tax limit (currently $3M) and the lifetime gift exclusion. So no - neither you, your siblings, nor your parents would have to pay any tax now if they gifed the properties to you. This assumes that your parents haven't previously made substantial gifts above the annual gift exclusion amounts to you or others. It also assumes that the total value of your parents' assets is less than the estate tax exclusion, which is currently $2M. If their assets are in the $2M range, they should definitely be consulting an estate planning specialist to talk this over.

CA has neither an estate tax nor inheritance taxes, and MN's estate tax is tied to the federal system, so no worries there either.