Estate Planning

When Unfinished Business and Legal Uncertainty Collide

By Hull & Hull LLP

Recently on our website, Bianca La Neve blogged on the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Death Tax and Jennifer Hartman blogged on Nabokov's unfinished work "Laura" which the author had wanted destroyed but which his executor published anyway. 

One would be forgiven for thinking the two blogs could not possibly have anything to do with one another. 

But the recent death of J.D. Salinger, notoriously reclusive author of "Catcher in the Rye," has caused at least one commentator to consider the dilemma posed to the estate of a deceased author in the context of the legal uncertainty that Bianca recounted in her blog.  As Richard A. Behrendt, self-described "tax geek" observes (as quoted in Floyd Norris's blog posted on the New York Times website on January 29, 2010):

"Many have predicted that the representatives of the estate of someone who dies [during the period between January 1, 2010 and the date of implementation of any retroactive death tax] would mount a constitutional challenge to the retroactivity of the law.... Another unique issue [with respect to Salinger's estate] is valuation. Some reports have hinted that Salinger had anywhere from 2 to 15 unpublished novels in his safe. Not to suggest that there is an unpublished 'Catcher in the Rye' lying around (which has sold 60 million copies), but the possibility raises some really interesting valuation questions, namely, how much is an unpublished Salinger novel worth for federal estate tax purposes?"

For another interesting consideration of Salinger's estate from an estate law perspective see this link.

David Morgan Smith

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).