A woman was on a Jetblue flight to Orlando to attend the funeral of her grandson who was murdered last weekend by the Islamic terrorist. A Jetblue flight attendant whispered to each passenger about signing a sheet of paper to show their support for her. She wound up needing many pieces of paper because people were writing paragraphs of compassion for the grandmother. When the woman left the plane, every single passenger hugged her.
Aubrey McLendon was an Oklahoma City businessman who made his fortune in the energy business. He died in a March auto accident the day after he was indicted for allegedly rigging the price of oil and gas leases. He also owned 20% of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Attorneys for one of the lenders to his business have already filed motions in the probate court asking for input into the sale price of his interest in the NBA team. They fear the estate will sell it to his widow for less than the maximum price even though it is not currently for sale. They stated that the primary purpose of the probate court is to protect the interest of creditors.
Just returned from a week in the Caribbean. The British Virgin Islands are special. Post to follow soon. Meanwhile, here is the family pic from Cooper Island Beach Club.
Viacom and CBS President, Sumner Redstone, is back in the news this week. He removed Phillipe Dauman and George Abrams, who are directors of Viacom, as Trustees of one of his trusts. They are contesting their removal by alleging he is incompetent. In a huge twist of irony/self-preservation/whatever you want to call it, only six months ago they testified he was competent to remove a girlfriend as his health care proxy.
Three brief points:
1. The stakes in the previous battle involved who could make his health care decisions if he could not (while the real plot was whether he could change his will to disinherit his former girlfriend) while these stakes are who gets to control Viacom and CBS after Redstone’s death.
2. I think if Redstone is in a wheelchair, being fed by a feeding tube, and able to communicate only through an aide now, and was in the same condition six months ago, he was likely incompetent at both junctures.
3. Dauman and Abrams have reaped what they have sown. Being close to Redstone is like having an alligator as a pet – it might seem cool, but eventually it (i.e. he) will devour you.
Hillary Clinton’s recently released financial disclosure statement reveals that she and her husband both created a qualified personal residence trust in 2010 and transferred ownership of their NY home to it. They did not transfer their more expensive Washington DC house to a similar trust.
Several quick educational points:
1. A qualified personal residence trust allows them to transfer the house at a discounted gift tax value based on how long they wish to reside in the house and the current interest rates.
2. For example, if they decided to live in the house for the next 20 years (and not die), they would be able to transfer the entire $1.7 million house to Chelsea while only valuing it at $400K for gift tax purposes.
3. Future appreciation is also excluded from their estate.
4. They would have been wise to transfer the DC property via this technique because that house has doubled in value while the NY property has only increased nominally.
5. While this estate planning technique is available to everyone, I find it hypocritical that a woman campaigning for higher estate taxes and other taxes in the name of the greater good does everything she can to avoid those taxes.