R-E-S-P-E-C-T the Plan

Aretha Franklin left this world with a musical legacy for the ages. The Queen of Soul started singing for her father's "gospel carnival tours" at 12, cut her first record at 18, and scored her first hit a year later. She went on to record 112 hit singles, including 20 #1s, and won 18 Grammies. She performed for presidents and even sang for a real queen (of England). When word broke of her death last month, many questioned who on earth could possibly sing at her funeral? (Answer: Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, and many more.)

Unfortunately, Franklin didn't leave behind a will. This is especially ironic considering how rock steady she was with her money during her life — even downright paranoid! She demanded payment on the spot, in cash, then kept a handbag with stacks of hundred-dollar bills with her security team, or even right on her piano where she could see it. She had seen colleagues like Ray Charles and B.B. King get ripped off, and she was notabout to join them!

Franklin died in her longtime hometown of Detroit, and had been divorced since 1984. Michigan law holds that when an unmarried person dies "intestate," or without a will, their assets go equally to their children. Franklin's four sons have stepped forward as "interested parties" in court papers and nominated Franklin's niece as the natural woman to be the estate's personal representative. But that's no guarantee that a chain of fools won't show up with their hands out, especially with an estate valued at $80 million or more. (Not bad for a tenth-grade dropout, right?)

Franklin is hardly the only music icon to spend more time planning their next performance than their financial legacy. When Prince died intestate two years ago, the bitter fighting that erupted among his six heirs set the doves crying. Last year, the estate announced a distribution deal with Universal Music Group valued at $31 million. But five months later, a Minnesota judge let Universal back out after accusing the estate's representatives of fraud. The judge himself described the situation as "personal and corporate mayhem," which is something you never want to hear a judge say about you.

Estate planning may be more important for musicians because so many die young. When Doors frontman Jim Morrison reached the end at 27, he left his estate to his common-law wife, L.A. woman Pamela Courson. She died intestate three years later, so it went to her parents. But Morrison's parents argued his will was invalid because he wasn't competent to write it. (For some reason, they thought he was under the influence of drugs. How could that be?) Oh, and Morrison had married a previous girlfriend in a pagan ritual that included walking on fire and drinking each others' blood. Shouldn't that count for something?

Even proper planning can't guarantee preventing complications down the road. Michael Jackson left a valid will and revocable living trust. But his executors are locked in a Tax Court thriller, battling the IRS over how much to value his name and likeness. The estate pegged them at $2,105, reflecting the damage Jackson had done with his generally weird and scandalous public behavior. The IRS pegs those rights at $161 million because, well, he was the "King of Pop." At least he didn't leave it all to Bubbles the Chimp!

You may not earn your money performing for the Queen. But you probably still work hard for it. So show it some respect, and don't waste anything on taxes you don't have to pay. Call us for a plan to pay less, and we'll give you something to sing about!

Are You Sitting Down?

Let's start by saying that no one likes getting audited. But the average income tax audit isn't the end of the world. For tax year 2012, the IRS audited just 1,481,966 returns out of over 143 million filed, or barely one in a hundred. And according to the IRS Databook, the average "deficiency notice" demanding more tax was just $10,331. That's nobody's idea of a party, of course. But it shouldn't bankrupt anyone who makes enough to owe that much extra tax.

Things are a little different when it comes to estate taxes. For starters, the tax applies to the value of your assets, not the income they produce. It doesn't kick in until your taxable estate after all deductions tops $5.25 million ($10.5 million per couple). But the tax itself is 40%, which is higher than the top income tax rate. With so much more at stake, the estate-tax audit percentage is naturally far higher than the percentage for income tax — for 2012, the IRS audited 3,762 out of 12,582 estate tax returns filed, or nearly one in three. As for the average deficiency, well, here's hoping you're sitting down — it's a whopping $305,529!

Of course, that's just the average. Half of those 3,762 deficiency notices are mercifully lower. And half of them are higher — some far, far higher.

Which brings us to William Davidson. A Detroit native, Davidson grew Guardian Industries into one of the world's top manufacturers of architectural glass, automotive, and building products. He also owned the NBA's Detroit Pistons, the WNBA's Detroit Shock, and the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning. Davidson died on March 13, 2009, at age 86, with a net worth estimated at $5.5 billion.

Now, Davidson didn't make his fortune by being stupid. As a former attorney, he knew the IRS would take a close look at his estate-tax return. He and his lawyers took careful steps to protect his heirs from the worst of the tax. So you can only imagine their surprise in May, when the IRS sent them a bill for 2.8 billion dollars!

Davidson's case involves three main issues. First, how much was the privately-held stock worth, which he transferred into trusts for his children and grandchildren? The IRS says Davidson undervalued it by as much as $1,500 per share. Davidson's lawyers say that automotive and construction stocks were tanking in late 2008 and 2009, and it was entirely foreseeable at that time that the company's sales and profits would plunge. Second, how much should the trusts have paid for the stock? Davidson used a "self-canceling installment note," or SCIN, which meant the trusts would make payments to Davidson for that stock while he lived, but the debt would expire at Davidson's death. The IRS has no problem with the SCIN strategy itself, but says the payments should have been higher based on Davidson's life expectancy when he made the transfer. And third, they argue, Davidson owes extra tax on gifts he made to his family as far back as 2005.

Needless to say, Davidson's lawyers aren't taking the $2.8 billion bill lying down. Last week, they filed a petition in U.S. Tax Court telling the IRS to take a hike. Experts say that the strategies he used aren't the issue — it's the scale that makes the case so juicy. But it's one of the biggest estate-tax fights ever, so we can probably expect a long and difficult battle.

We realize you don't have $2.8 billion for the IRS to claim. But that doesn't make you any less important. Proper planning is the key to making the most of your legacy too, no matter how much you have to leave. So call us with your questions. And take at least a little comfort in knowing that the IRS gets to audit your estate tax return only once!

Bada-Ching!

The acting world lost one of its brightest lights when Sopranos star James Gandolfini died of a sudden heart attack while touring Italy with his family last month. Gandolfini was the iconic face of HBO's acclaimed drama, which made cable television, rather than the movies, the place for serious actors to "make their bones." Gandolfini himself became the model for a new breed of anti-heroes like Breaking Bad's Walter White and Mad Men's Don Draper. Few critics would dispute The Sopranos place as one of the greatest dramas in TV history.

Hollywood stars have always been famous for bringing home the big bucks, and Gandolfini was no exception. He fought as hard as a real mobster to maximize his pay. But he was legendarily generous, too. Co-star Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri on The Sopranos, recalled that in Season Four, Gandolfini gave each of his co-stars $33,000 for "sticking by him." And after holding up filming on Season Five over a pay dispute — which reportedly doubled his own salary to more than $800,000 per episode — Gandolfini included a clause in his deal making sure everyone else who worked on the show got paid retroactively for what they missed during the standoff. Not just a "goodfella" — a good guy.

Apparently, though, Gandolfini never had that all-important sit-down with his consiglieres about estate taxes. That means the capos at the IRS are about to give his heirs a shakedown that would make Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero gulp in disbelief.

If you know nothing about estate taxes, remember this. You can bequeath as many millions as you like to your spouse, completely tax-free. Anything else above a "unified credit exemption amount" (currently $5.25 million per person) is subject to a 40% tax. That's a cut approaching mob-level "protection."

So, early reports suggest that Gandolfini's estate was worth in the neighborhood of $70 million. (That's a lot of gabagool for the son of a bricklayer and high-school lunch lady!) He left 80% to his sisters, his 13-year-old son, and his nine-month-old daughter. Tax on those bequests could reach up to $30 million. He left the remaining 20%, after taxes, to his wife Deborah Lin. That means she could wind up with 20% of just $40 million, rather than 20% of $70 million she could have enjoyed with better planning. In case you're like Paulie Walnuts and math ain't your strong suit, that's a six million dollar mistake. No wonder New York estate-planning attorney William Zabel (author of The Rich Die Richer and You Can Too), called Gandolfini's will a "disaster" and a "catastrophe"!

What's worse, the tax itself is due nine months from Gandolfini's June 16th death. And, in another eerie similarity to the Mob, the kneebusters at the IRS want "cash." (They'll take a payment plan if they have to, but they won't be very happy about it.) That means Gandolfini's heirs may be forced to sell assets, perhaps at fire-sale prices, to come up with the money, making the loss even worse.

We realize you may not have to worry about the IRS pinching $30 million from your estate. But James Gandolfini's untimely passing reminds us just how important proactive planning can be to your family's future. So here's an offer you can't refuse: call us now for the plan you need before the IRS takes a whack at you. And if you already have the plan you need, is there someone just like you who could use the same savings? We're here for them, too!

(photo courtesy wikimedia.org)