Paul Allen May be Leaving Largest Estate in Washington History

Paul Allen constructed an empire over the 35 years after he left Microsoft that consists of funding local museums and arts festivals, sponsoring brain science and artificial intelligence research institutes, and even owning sports teams and an enormous real-estate portfolio. The disposition of possibly the largest estate in the history of the state of Washington poses many questions of the future of these endeavors, and the Internal Revenue Service will be poring through all of it.

There is familial continuity built in to the structure of Allen’s empire even though he was not married and had no children. His sister, Jody, helped carry out many of his endeavors. But there are early signs of how various pieces of the Allen empire have been subtly restructured to operate more independently. And rumors have already started about possible sales of Allen’s sports franchises, the Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers.

Large estates such as Allen's have their assets moved into a revocable living trust. Engineered to administer an estate, a trust serves in place of a will, but is not subject to the traditional court process of probate. But the issue of estate taxes remain, with substantial estates facing the possibility of being hit with a combined federal and state estate tax rate as high as 52%.

Douglas Lawrence, a lawyer whose practice includes planning and probate matters at the law firm Stokes Lawrence, says that “It all boils down to: What’s the value of that enterprise?” He expects the process to take a full nine months, and he would not be surprised if the estate asks tax authorities for an extension.

See Matt Day, Paul Roberts, & Benjamin Romano, Paul Allen’s Death Leaves Many Questions Around What’s Likely the Largest Estate in Washington History, The Seattle Times, October 17, 2018.

Special thanks to Jay Brinker (Cincinnati Estate Planning Attorney) for bringing this article to my attention.