Without excessive changes, the tax astute family can leave the kids two to three times that much, with more available for the parents while they are alive. It's amazing how many investors ignore taxes when making investment decisions. I'm not suggesting that taxes should be the primary factor in your investments. Many investors did that during the heyday of the tax shelters and they ended up without any tax benefits and without any investments either. Investing is a game of numbers.
Most conservative investments generate an after tax return that is less than the rate of inflation.
Thus, the real rate of return after taxes is often negative. Higher yielding investments don't help if you adjust your average return for the risk element. As a general rule, the risk adjusted rate of return on any investment is equal to the rate of return on a low risk investment such as a short term government bond. Thus,. higher yields don't really solve the problem. There are exceptions to this general rule if you adopt a system of asset allocation that can provide higher returns with less risk.