InterActive Legal subscriber, Dan Scott, has written extensively about a shift in how estate planning will be thought of in the near future. Instead of an emphasis on planning to avoid taxes, Dan suggests linking an estate plan to one’s life purpose…. More “Legacy Planning” than merely wealth transfer for the sake of retaining generational wealth. In a previous article that appeared in Forbes, Dan writes:
“Gone are the days of planning for your death. It’s time to plan for your life.”
“The reason traditional estate planning is dead is that it has nothing to do with happiness or helping you live a fulfilled life. Estate planning simply addresses what happens when your die. It only plans for the two inevitable certainties of life: death and taxes. What about planning for all of the uncertainties in life, the choices you make and ultimately control? What about planning to build the life you will ultimately leave behind when you die?”
In the post that follows, Dan conjects three reasons singer-songwriter Bob Dylan may have sold his music catalog…all consistent with his previous musings about making such moves to enhance a living legacy.
If you haven’t heard, it’s true—Bob Dylan sold the rights to his music publishing catalog
Why, you ask? The short answer, and the one that has fans and the internet grumbling, is money.
Estimates put the value of the sale in the $300-400 million range. So, to pull a line from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, he didn’t just do it for the money, he did it “for a shit load of money!”
Of course, the question does not (or at least should not) stop there. You see, money has no intrinsic value. The value of money is derived from its application—that is, what we choose to do with the money. In other words, money is really just a tool to be used in order to achieve some other goal.
