Disclaim estate inheritance and taxes

How and to whom your fathers assets passed at his death can be dictated by our laws of intestate succession, the manner in which the assets were titled or beneficiary forms for the assets.  I'm guessing that some or all of these impacted your father's estate.  I'd need to know more about the details of your father's assets in order to give you full advice on this question.  I can give you some general information though. Yes, you can disclaim assets transferred to you by your father via most of the means of transfer I mentioned above.  A written disclaimer should be filed/transmitted within 6 months of his death generally.  If your desire is that your mother receives everything, then a disclaimer may help with that AND it will have the effect of reducing the inheritance tax because there is no tax payable on transferred between spouses.  It may be unnecessary to use the disclaimer to achieve your desired outcome.  Your mother can pay the tax from the assets she received.  It doesn't matter who pays the tax, so long as the tax is paid.  If she is refusing, that's another story entirely. You can also transfer the assets outright to your mother without tax consequences provided they do not exceed a certain dollar value.