Other Items of Income: Taxes After a Death (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Other Items of Income” within taxes after a death. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 559 (2025), Survivors, Executors, and Administrators, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Other Items of Income

Some other items of income that a survivor or beneficiary may receive are discussed below. Lump-sum payments received by the surviving spouse or beneficiary of a deceased employee may represent the following.

• Accrued salary payments.

• Distributions from employee profit-sharing, pension, annuity, and stock bonus plans.

• Other items that should be treated separately for tax purposes.

The treatment of these lump-sum payments depends on what the payments represent.

Public safety officers.

Special rules apply to certain amounts received due to the death of a public safety officer (a law enforcement officer, fire fighter, chaplain, or member of an ambulance crew or rescue squad).

Caution:

The provisions for public safety officers apply to a chaplain killed in the line of duty after September 10, 2001, if the chaplain was responding to a fire, rescue, or police emergency as a member or employee of a fire or police department.

Death benefits.

The death benefit payable to eligible survivors of public safety officers who die as a result of traumatic injuries sustained in the line of duty isn't included in either the beneficiaries' income or the decedent's gross estate. This benefit is administered through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

The BJA can pay the eligible survivors an emergency interim benefit up to $3,000 if it determines that a public safety officer's death is one for which a death benefit will probably be paid. If there is no final payment, the recipient of the interim benefit is liable for repayment. However, the BJA may waive all or part of the repayment if it will cause a hardship. Any repayment waived isn't included in income.

Survivor benefits.

Generally, a survivor annuity received by the spouse, former spouse, or child of a public safety officer killed in the line of duty is excluded from the recipient's income. The annuity must be provided under a government plan and is excludable to the extent that it is attributable to the officer's service as a public safety officer.

The exclusion doesn't apply if the recipient's actions were responsible for the officer's death. It also doesn't apply in the following circumstances.

• The death was caused by the intentional misconduct of the officer or by the officer's intention to cause such death.

• The officer was voluntarily intoxicated at the time of death.

• The officer was performing officer duties in a grossly negligent manner at the time of death.

Salary or wages.

Salary or wages paid after the employee's death are usually taxable income to the beneficiary. See Wages, earlier, under Specific Types of Income in Respect of a Decedent.

Caution:

If the decedent is a specified terrorist victim (see Specified Terrorist Victim, earlier), certain income received by the beneficiary or the estate isn't taxable. For more information, see Pub. 3920.

Rollover distributions.

An employee's surviving spouse who receives an eligible rollover distribution may roll it over tax free into an IRA, a qualified plan, a section 403 annuity, or a section 457 plan. For more information, see Pub. 575, Pension and Annuity Income; and Form 4972, Tax on Lump-Sum Distributions.

Rollovers by nonspouse beneficiary.

A beneficiary other than the employee's surviving spouse may be able to roll over all or part of a distribution from an eligible retirement plan of a deceased employee. The nonspouse beneficiary must be the designated beneficiary of the employee. The distribution must be a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer to the beneficiary’s IRA set up to receive the distribution. The transfer will be treated as an eligible rollover distribution and the receiving plan will be treated as an inherited IRA. For more information on inherited IRAs, see Pubs. 590-A and 590-B.

Pensions and annuities.

For beneficiaries who receive pensions and annuities, see Pub. 575. For beneficiaries of federal civil service employees or retirees, see Pub. 721, Tax Guide to U.S. Civil Service Retirement Benefits.

Inherited IRAs.

If a person other than the decedent's spouse inherits the decedent's traditional IRA or Roth IRA, that person can't treat the IRA as one established on the person’s behalf. If a distribution from a traditional IRA is from contributions that were deducted or from earnings and gains in the IRA, it is fully taxable income. If there were nondeductible contributions, an allocation between taxable and nontaxable income must be made. For information on distributions from a Roth IRA, see the discussion earlier under Income in Respect of a Decedent. The inherited IRA can't be rolled over into, or receive a rollover from, another IRA. No deduction is allowed for amounts paid into that inherited IRA. For more information about IRAs, see Pubs. 590-A and 590-B.

Estate income.

Estates may have to pay federal income tax. Beneficiaries may have to pay tax on their share of estate income. However, there is never a double tax. See Distributions to Beneficiaries, later.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

• Publication 559 (2025), Survivors, Executors, and Administrators: Other Tax Information — Other Items of Income — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.