Bequeathing Trouble: Prince’s Estate Plan
Prince’s death came as an enormous shock to the world. And the $150 million in estate taxes that his family will end up paying will come as a shock to them. It turns out that Prince’s estate plan was to not have a plan.
The untimely death of the enigmatic music icon left two things:
- Millions of grieving fans
- A vault of unreleased recordings
But just what’s going to happen to those recordings—a collection reportedly large enough to release new music for the next 50 years—and the 57-year-old pop star’s $300 million in assets, is still very unclear.
Why?—because Prince died without setting up an estate.
The absence of an estate plan is surprising for an artist known for his meticulous attention to detail, but in reality it is an all too common occurrence for the wealthy.
- “It’s too expensive”
- “It’s too much trouble”
- “I’m not planning to die”
These are ALL lines I’ve heard over the course of my career, and they’re all equally frustrating to hear. I really shake my head at the “It’s too expensive” excuse. Consider Prince’s example. If his estate is worth $300 million, as reported by CNBC, then his family will pay half of that in taxes. Compared to $150 million, spending $50,000 in estate planning sounds pretty cheap to me.
You see, whether Prince wasn’t ready to think about his own mortality, or he simply forgot to form an estate doesn’t matter. What DOES matter is that his heirs are now going to be mired in paperwork with government.
By failing to form an estate plan (or even a will), Prince died intestate, which means no instructions were left. No instructions mean the government has to fill in the blanks. A court will appoint an executor for the estate, and after debts, taxes, and probate costs, will divide what’s left according to the laws of intestate succession.
Prince completely surrendered his right to control what happens to his worldly possessions—music, money, property, clothing, jewelry, etc.—by not taking the time to form an estate plan.
Worse still, he’s pass along the financial, emotional, and legal burden of settling the estate to his family.
In my experience, when a high-value individual dies intestate, lengthy in-family legal battles over rights, custody, or the valuation of assets, are not far off.
In the case of Prince, the deceased artist’s sister and half-brother have very different ideas about what should happen to his unreleased recordings, and those different ideas will—at some point—lead to a legal confrontation.
Prince’s legacy—his legend, his unpublished songs, his wealth, his property, his famous outfits, everything—will be controlled by people he has never even sat down and had a conversation with.
The executors of Prince’s estate literally don’t know him any better than you or I do—we can only hope they’ll make decisions he would approve of.