Taxation & Estate Planning

Roland Burris: Estate Planner

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

These are trying times for Illinois residents. They should be the best of times (with our own former Senator in the White House), but Governor Blagojevich changed all that. Now I have to field calls from out-of-state relatives, asking me what's going on with our political system. And, to make matters worse, we get the Roland Burris tombstone issue.

What's that? Evidently the mausoleum for the new junior senator from Illinois has already been built, and it contains the words "Trail Blazer," as well as Senator Burris's resume. The Tribune has the story, here. The Senator's explanation?

"I'm an estate planner. I try to convince people to plan for your pre-needs," he explained. "It's best to have your crypts or your mausoleum already set aside. It takes a major burden off of your family."

As for his résumé chiseled in granite, Burris said, "that wasn't me."

"The cemetery in Oak Woods insisted when I went out to plan my estate that my résumé be put on it. That wasn't me. That was the manager of the funeral home," he said. "They insisted that my résumé be put up and they came up with that design and did all that."

So not only is this guy another embarrassing Illinois politician, but he's also an estate planner? An estate planner who can get talked into things by a cemetery? Ugh.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).