When James Brown died, he left his estate to a charity that was devoted to giving scholarships to disadvantaged students in South Carolina and Georgia. However, legal challenges immediately arose with the case eventually making its way to the South Carolina Supreme Court. At the heart of the issue is what the estate is worth with valuation estimates ranging from just under $5 million as claimed for estate taxes to almost $100 million at his death. This issue is critical since the charitable trust that will provide the funds for the scholarships must distribute a certain percentage of the trust’s value every year. This will be an interesting case going forward as it illustrates the difference between at death valuations and estate tax claims which tend to be as low as possible. In any event, let us hope as little money is spent on litigation and as much is distributed to the needy as possible.
See Sue Summer, The $95 million question: What’s at stake in Brown estate battle?, Herald Independent, September 4, 2015.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse for bringing this article to my attention.
