A primary resolution of the Aretha Franklin estate battle came after only an hour's deliberation by a jury, but there's plenty of questions still up in the air.
The jury ruled that the will from the couch (2014) took precedence over the one from the cupboard (2010) in the Michigan court case. Here's a quick article from Vulture regarding the outcome. That leaves a lot of details to be worked out among the heirs. I doubt this is over yet.
A more general article about estate planning, using the Franklin case as a bad example, can be found on the Investment News website.
On the 30th, when I made the post about the trial, I noted that her intellectual property had been assigned the nominal value of $1 - a ridiculous valuation for the creative output of someone like Franklin - which has contributed to wildly conflicting reports of the value of the estate.
In an article from a year ago, Forbes reported her estate to be valued at $80 million at the time of her death. As I wrote on the 10th, the estate income reported in March 2023 was $3.9 million for the previous 12-month period (according to CBS) but the estate itself was valued at $4.1 million, primarily in cash and real estate (and that $1 for her creative output). And the Independent pegged her estate at $18 million.
Who do you believe? How do you know what your intellectual property is worth? That's a question we need to answer, for the sake of our heirs, but it isn't easy. To tell the truth, I couldn't make any kind of guess as to what value to place on my IP - but I need to figure it out.
The Forbes article in particular is interesting as it touches on the question of estate and income taxes, and, as the author, Robert W. Wood says, "when it comes to the IRS, they do tend to persist and to collect." He also makes a good case for creating a trust.
I found all of this with a few minutes of searching, but each of these articles cites other sources, and I can see the rabbit hole looming in front of me if I let it tempt me. I am trying to resist the lure of reading about estates and wills and trusts (Oh, my!), but if you don't hear from me by this time next week, send help! :-)