Lessons Learned From Celebrity Estates: Structuring Estate Plans to Avoid Missteps

Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Tax Preparer
- event Date
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
110 minutes
-
BARBRI is a NASBA CPE sponsor and this 110-minute webinar is accredited for 2.0 CPE credits.
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BARBRI is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).
This webinar will analyze several celebrities' estate plans and highlight the positive and negative aspects of these plans. Our panel of wealth strategists will offer legacy planning advice for high net worth individuals utilizing these examples.
Faculty

Ms. Friedman has spent more than two decades helping individuals and families strategize to protect and preserve their wealth through estate planning, tax and gift strategies, and the creation of various trusts. She additionally provides comprehensive counsel in business succession planning, probate trust and estate administration, charitable giving, special needs planning, and guardianships, ensuring her clients’ assets are safeguarded in the most effective and least restrictive manner. Ms. Friedman's extensive experience in trust administration and estate planning includes advising families on structuring and managing family offices, guiding them through intricate estate, trust, and tax planning considerations, including real estate holdings. Known for her thoughtful and pragmatic approach, she works closely with clients to develop tailored solutions that align with their long-term goals while minimizing tax burdens and preserving generational wealth.

Ms. Sabio Socrates (“Tina”) brings over 25 years of experience in estate planning and probate law, serving a diverse clientele including individuals, married couples, professionals, and business owners. Her extensive experience spans from handling modest estates to managing large and complex estates. Ms. Sabio Socrates's services encompass a broad range of needs, from drafting simple wills and powers of attorney to creating revocable trusts and sophisticated trust planning. She aims to meet specific objectives such as wealth transfer, business succession, asset protection, charitable giving, and minimizing estate tax liabilities.
Description
Estate planning missteps made by celebrities mirror those often made by affluent individuals. Other than being famous, and often worth more after death, these individuals' estate plans are like most others. And, like many others, there may be no estate plan or will. Primarily, individuals and trust and estate professionals would like to ensure assets are distributed to heirs as intended, avoid litigation, and preserve their legacy.
Failure to devise an estate plan, update an estate plan, or not incorporate uncertainties in inheritance plans all have consequences. Recently, Gene Hackman predeceased his much younger wife of 30 years. Their wills were outdated, and it is doubtful he considered that his wife might pass first. No one can be certain their assets will be distributed as they intended.
All estate plans are unique; however, reviewing the estate plans of the rich and famous offers invaluable planning tips and techniques applicable to all estates.
Listen as our panel of trusted estate planning attorneys describes the estate plans of famous individuals and offers recommendations that taxpayers and trust and estate professionals should consider.
Outline
- Lessons learned from celebrity estates: introduction
- Prince
- Aretha Franklin
- Gene Hackman
- Richard Simmons
- Rupert Murdoch
- Other celebrity estates
- Lessons learned
- Best practices
Benefits
The panel will cover these and other key issues:
- Wealth transfer missteps to avoid using examples from celebrity estates
- Utilizing estate plans to ensure assets are distributed to heirs as intended
- The caveats of not having an updated estate plan
- Steps to mitigate litigation in estates
NASBA Details
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Identify techniques to incorporate in estate plans to ensure assets are distributed as intended in estate plans
- Determine the importance of implementing an estate plan
- Decide steps to take to mitigate litigation in estates
- Ascertain missteps made in specific celebrity estates
- Field of Study: Taxes
- Level of Knowledge: Intermediate
- Advance Preparation: None
- Teaching Method: Seminar/Lecture
- Delivery Method: Group-Internet (via computer)
- Attendance Monitoring Method: Attendance is monitored electronically via a participant's PIN and through a series of attendance verification prompts displayed throughout the program
- Prerequisite:
Three years+ business or public firm experience preparing complex tax forms and schedules, supervising other preparers or accountants. Specific knowledge and understanding of estate, gift and trust taxation including various trusts types, the unified credit, and portability.

Strafford Publications, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of Accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE Credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsons may be submitted to NASBA through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

Strafford is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).
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