Pair inherits $65M sculpture, but can't sell it to pay $29M tax bill

[eyeeatingfish]

Agreed. It's hideous. Anyone know what is in the sack hanging from the rope? a pillow?

It is two giant testicles being carried away by a bald eagle. The eagle is taking it away because todays art has turned into crap.

[eyeeatingfish]

Yes, he would still pay taxes. But, he could claim a deduction for the donation. He may actually come out a little ahead on that.

This problem of inheriting something and having to give it up because you can't pay the tax is not uncommon. You see it, for example, when a grandma thinks she's doing such a nice thing by leaving her two-year-old, 2500-mile BMW to her struggling granddaughter who is just out of college. The young lady is initially very excited because she has been struggling without a car and now she has the beautiful, like-new BMW. But she will probably have to sell the car to pay the tax on the inheritance.

There are ways around this problem. Talk to a good estate-planning attorney.

That is how my parents were able to get the beach house they bought for retirement. Someone inherited it and could not afford it.

Maybe I will slowly sell my stuff as I get old and buy silver/gold coins then when i die my kids get it. The government will never know that my relatives inherited the money. Even if they cash it all at once they can just say they received it one coin every month as they grew up etc.
This is of course assuming they do not fight over it.

Arguably though when the granddaughter sells the BMW she still gets more money than she started with. Inheritance taxes don't kick in till something like 1-2 million $ I thought. Maybe there is some other type of tax on smaller inheritance items?

[timcsaw]

That is how my parents were able to get the beach house they bought for retirement. Someone inherited it and could not afford it.

Maybe I will slowly sell my stuff as I get old and buy silver/gold coins then when i die my kids get it. The government will never know that my relatives inherited the money. Even if they cash it all at once they can just say they received it one coin every month as they grew up etc.
This is of course assuming they do not fight over it.

Arguably though when the granddaughter sells the BMW she still gets more money than she started with. Inheritance taxes don't kick in till something like 1-2 million $ I thought. Maybe there is some other type of tax on smaller inheritance items?

I think you are right about the 1-2 million minimum for inheritance tax, but I would think that anything else would still be taxed at normal property or income tax rates.

[Triton]

That is how my parents were able to get the beach house they bought for retirement. Someone inherited it and could not afford it.

Maybe I will slowly sell my stuff as I get old and buy silver/gold coins then when i die my kids get it. The government will never know that my relatives inherited the money. Even if they cash it all at once they can just say they received it one coin every month as they grew up etc.
This is of course assuming they do not fight over it.

Arguably though when the granddaughter sells the BMW she still gets more money than she started with. Inheritance taxes don't kick in till something like 1-2 million $ I thought. Maybe there is some other type of tax on smaller inheritance items?

I think that's true until the beginning of next year. Taxmegeddon is indeed coming.

[Shann]

Let's not shed any tears for these two. This was part of the article:


"Sundell and Homem, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, have paid $471 million in federal and state estate taxes related to the collection and have already sold roughly $600 million worth of art to pay those taxes."

So even though they have to pay a lot of taxes, they have already cleared 129 MILLION dollars by accident of birth. Even if they have to pay the entire tax, they still are up 100 million dollars. And I'm sure that there is more that hasn't been sold. (I'm not saying that the tax isn't ridiculous or that the artist clearly should have done some planning, and I'm sure that there were a lot of fees associated with the sales, so their net is much lower, just that they still got a huge amount of money that none of us (probably) will ever see one-tenth of).