You Can’t Take It With You

But you don’t want to leave it all to the tax man. Given today’s high art values, estate planning is more essential than ever.

After a few too many whiskeys, a wealthy English art collector recently confided to us the crux of his estate tax plan: Following his death, his children had standing instructions to lock up all the good paintings in their castle’s dungeon. Since most of our U.S. clients don’t have castles—and don’t want their heirs locked up in dungeons by the authorities—we advise them to do some thoughtful estate planning to maximize tax benefits and ensure that their art collections end up in the right hands. Here are several approaches to estate tax planning used by collectors today. Continue reading “You Can’t Take It With You”