Recently, Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 Billion, including an additional 40 million shares of stock worth $2 Billion. There could be a number of reasons why Lucas made this particular move. For one, Lucas’ decision to sell came at a time where he could take advantage of tax breaks that are about to expire. It is only assumed that Lucas might have wanted to take advantage of the favorable tax law. This would include the favorable rates on capital gains. Some speculate that Lucas chose to forgo deferring the recognition of income because the tax rates on capital gains are set to increase should President Obama win the general election (Governor Romney has stated that he would likely decrease the rate on capital gains). Unfortunately, this is all speculation. We probably will not know why Lucas made the decisions that he has in this respect.
Lucas plans to donate a vast majority of the profits that he earned from the sell to fund education through the George Lucas Foundation, a non-profit education group.
See Scott Martin, Disney Deal Gives George Lucas a Billion-Dollar Tax Break, The Trust Advisor, Nov. 4, 2012.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.
