Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic, has grossed $1,028,703,388 worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. That's a billion-dollar reminder that a famous face can earn long after the person is gone.
So here's a number that sounds like a typo. When the estate and the IRS fought in Tax Court over what Jackson's image and likeness were worth for estate tax, the court landed at $4,153,912. Not billions. Not even the IRS's $161 million.
Both numbers can be right, because the estate tax asks a very specific question.
Takeaway #1: Estate tax values a likeness on the day you die
FROM THE OPINION
"the price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell and both having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts"
What it means for you. That's fair market value, and it's measured on the date of death. Jackson died in 2009. The question wasn't what his likeness became worth. It was what an informed buyer would have paid for it then. The court presumes that buyer is "reasonably informed" and asks the seller for information that isn't public.
Later events can count, but only "to the extent that they were reasonably foreseeable" at death. That's where the IRS's case fell apart. Its expert projected income from deals that came later, including a film. The court wasn't buying it. Jackson had talked about making movies, and there was rehearsal footage. But the court found "this does not make a potential film foreseeable." The footage was raw, and getting it to the screen took "the distinct talents that the managers of Jackson's estate brought to the project on their own."
That last line is the key. Value created by the estate's own work after death is the estate's achievement, not something the decedent owned on day one.
The swings are wild. The estate's return reported the likeness at $2,105. The IRS's notice put it at $434,264,000, then $161,307,045 by the time of briefing, while the estate argued $3,078,000. The court's figure sits much closer to the estate's.
Your move. If you manage a famous client's affairs, the paper trail before death matters. Documented deals, offers and plans can be used to argue foreseeability. So can their absence.
Takeaway #2: Today's exemption, and why it doesn't end the story
FROM THE IRS
"Estates of decedents who die during 2026 have a basic exclusion amount of $15,000,000, up from a total of $13,990,000 for estates of decedents who died in 2025."
What it means for you. For 2026 deaths, the first $15 million of an estate is covered by the basic exclusion. Most people will never owe federal estate tax. A star with a catalog and a famous face can blow past that number before anyone counts the likeness.
And the likeness is its own asset. In the Jackson case, the court valued it separately from his music-publishing interests, and those fights were bigger. The IRS valued his interest in the trust holding his Sony/ATV stake at $206,295,934; the court put it at zero. His Mijac Music catalog came in at $107,313,561, close to the IRS's $114,263,615 and far above the estate's $2,267,316. Those are the 2021 opinion's figures. In 2024, Us Weekly, citing a court filing, reported that the estate had asked the Tax Court to reconsider the catalog's value. The case's docket isn't viewable online, so we can't confirm the final numbers. Likeness was the smallest of the three disputes in dollars, and the one that best shows how the foreseeability rule works. That's why estates care how state law treats a person's name and image after death, and why a well-advised client plans before the valuation fight, not during it.
In estate tax, the value turns on a hypothetical sale on the worst day of the family's life. The devil is in the details, and here the detail is the date.
Your move. Ask your estate lawyer whether your name, voice and likeness show up in your plan as an asset. If they don't, ask why not. Then think about who should control them.
Sample wording (our illustration): "I give all rights in my name, voice, signature, photograph and likeness, including any post-mortem right of publicity, to the Trustee of the Family Trust."
And always remember, don't sign it till you read it, my friends.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Reading this doesn't create an attorney-client relationship. Talk to your own estate planner about your situation.
