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What is Chad Kelly (Jim's nephew) hinting at?


Doc

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Hopefully this means there is a plan in place to keep the Bills in Buffalo for the long term. Maybe Ralph agreed to purchase price with a potential buyer to make things easier for his estate when he passes? Also to any tax experts out there, what would be the tax burden to his heirs if he were to sell the team now and divide the profits amongst those named in his estate now prior to his death

 

P.S. Page 10!!!!

I don't claim any particular education or expertise, but for an estate as big as Ralph's will be, the total overall tax burden created by giving stuff away before you die (rather than passing it through your will) is pretty negligible. There's something called the "gift tax" that comes into play for wealthy individuals like Ralph:

 

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Tax-Planning-and-Checklists/The-Gift-Tax/INF12036.html

 

The federal gift tax exists for one reason: to prevent citizens from avoiding the federal estate tax by giving away their money before they die.

 

If you want more details, there's a pretty good explanation in the link.

 

Edit:

 

And remember that if Ralph sells the team before he dies, he pays capital gains taxes on the sale profits - - in addition to the eventual estate taxes that would still have to be paid anyway. So if Ralph wants to maximize how much net after-all-taxes money he leaves to his family, there are very few circumstances, given the life expectancy of a man his age with a broken hip, that would make it financially prudent to sell the team before he dies. If he changes course from his 2007 public comments and sells the team before he dies, it would very likely be for non-financial reasons.

Edited by ICanSleepWhenI'mDead
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I don't claim any particular education or expertise, but for an estate as big as Ralph's will be, the total overall tax burden created by giving stuff away before you die (rather than passing it through your will) is pretty negligible. There's something called the "gift tax" that comes into play for wealthy individuals like Ralph:

 

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Tax-Planning-and-Checklists/The-Gift-Tax/INF12036.html

 

 

 

If you want more details, there's a pretty good explanation in the link.

 

Thanks for that I also found this article on Reuters.

 

"I don't think anybody in Congress realized this," said Michael Gooen, a tax and estate attorney at Lowenstein Sandler. The point is that not only will the $5 million estate-tax exemption ($10 million for a couple) remove the vast majority of formerly taxable estates from the estate tax, but rather that the higher gift-tax exclusion means that people with far larger estates than that -- think $50 million, $100 million, and up -- have the ability to shift assets out of their estates tax-free while they're alive. "You are going to see a flurry of estate planning," Gooen said.

 

 

Could this be the reason for a possible sale now?

 

Reuters Link

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Thanks for that I also found this article on Reuters.

 

"I don't think anybody in Congress realized this," said Michael Gooen, a tax and estate attorney at Lowenstein Sandler. The point is that not only will the $5 million estate-tax exemption ($10 million for a couple) remove the vast majority of formerly taxable estates from the estate tax, but rather that the higher gift-tax exclusion means that people with far larger estates than that -- think $50 million, $100 million, and up -- have the ability to shift assets out of their estates tax-free while they're alive. "You are going to see a flurry of estate planning," Gooen said.

 

 

Could this be the reason for a possible sale now?

 

Reuters Link

Interesting article - thanks. I need to think about the ramifications a bit. Even though the changes in the law potentially benefit people like Ralph, I have a hard time seeing how they would financially outweigh the "double taxation" caused by paying capital gains taxes on a sale during Ralph's lifetime, followed by estate taxes that are calculated based on his net worth at time of death (see the "Edit" I added to my most recent post above). If the new gift tax law somehow lets Ralph shelter an additional $9 million from gift/estate taxes (compared to the $1 million under the old law), isn't that benefit still going to be a lot less than 15% of his as-yet-unrealized profit on the sale of a roughly $800 million asset that he bought for something like $25,000 many years ago? Wouldn't a pre-death sale of Ralph's stock in Buffalo Bills, Inc. trigger a federal capital gains tax of very roughly ($800 million X 0.15) = $120 million?

 

I'm open to anyone's ideas, but I can't see how the gift/estate tax law changes could save Ralph enough money to overcome the burden of about $120 million in federal capital gains taxes that he would be required to pay for a pre-death sale.

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Hey, don't you all think that you are taking this a little too far? I mean, really, if there was going to be an eventual change in ownership then wouldn't you think all of the major networks would have sources leak this info out? I see a lot of hope and optimism here, but I seriously think it is going to shape up to be nothing. Just saying.

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