The ongoing controversy over the money left behind by Prince when he died without a will is heating up again after Internal Revenue Service calculations showed that executors of the rock star's estate undervalued it by 50%, or about $80 million.
The IRS determined that Prince's estate is worth $163.2 million, overshadowing the $82.3 million valuation submitted by Comerica Bank & Trust, the estate's administrator. The discrepancy primarily involves Prince's music publishing and recording interests, according to court documents.
Documents show the IRS believes that Prince's estate owes another $32.4 million in federal taxes, roughly doubling the tax bill based on Comerica's valuation, the Star Tribune reported.
The IRS also has ordered a $6.4 million "accuracy-related penalty" on Prince's estate, citing a "substantial" undervaluation of assets, documents show.
Prince's death of a fentanyl overdose on April 21, 2016, created one of the largest and most complicated probate court proceedings in Minnesota history. Estimates of his net worth have varied widely, from $100 million to $300 million.
With Prince's probate case dragging on, his six sibling heirs have grown increasingly unhappy, particularly as the estate has doled out tens of millions of dollars to lawyers and consultants.
Comerica and its lawyers at Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis maintain their estate valuations are solid. Comerica sued the IRS this summer in U.S. Tax Court in Washington, D.C., saying the agency's calculations are riddled with errors.
"What we have here is a classic battle of the experts — the estate's experts and the IRS' experts," said Dennis Patrick, an estate planning attorney at DeWitt LLP in Minneapolis who is not involved in the case. Valuing a large estate, Patrick added, "is way more of an art than a science."
Comerica, a Dallas-based financial services giant, has asked the tax court to hold a trial in St. Paul. A trial could dramatically lengthen the settlement of Prince's estate and generate more legal fees at the expense of Prince's heirs, Patrick said.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More