Good Tax Hunting: How Robin Williams Restricted The Use Of His Likeness For 25 Years After His Death, Saving Estate Taxes

Forbes, Why Robin Williams Won't Be Making Millions Beyond The Grave:

When beloved actor Robin Williams died in August 2014, he left behind a $100 million estate—and a potential fortune in image licensing. But a clause filed in a trust agreement made public this year means his likeness won’t make money for decades to come.

Williams, best-known for films such as Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Morning, Vietnam, filed a deed to put a restriction on the use of his likeness for 25 years after his death. This prevents his name, photograph, voice or signature from being used in any film, advertisement or endorsement until 2039–and limits his future earnings.

The estates of entertainers featured on our list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities are able to charge upwards of $500,000 for the use of their image in advertisements, with rare deals climbing into the seven figures. Some, such as James Dean and Bettie Page, also earn royalties from clothing sold with their name attached. Busy cultural icons including Dean and Page tally up a number of licensing deals which inch their posthumous paydays into the many millions.

By restricting the exploitation of his right of publicity, Williams, who died by suicide aged 63, has ensured no one cannot profit from his untimely death—at least not yet. ...

Williams could also have limited his image as a smart tax move, Roesler says. In the wake of Jackson’s estate tax difficulties (the IRS claimed the estate owes over $700 million based partially on the value of his likeness and intellectual property), celebrities seems to have become more cautious about how their image could be valued. But the Williams deed showed that the actor had already chosen to leave the rights to his name, signature, image and likeness to his Windfall Foundation, making it exempt from taxation.

“I don’t understand it in his estate since he was leaving his image to charity,” said Laura Zwicker, an attorney at Greenberg Glusker who counsels high net worth families on estate planning. Zwicker agreed that if Williams were leaving his image to family members or another taxable distribution, placing a restriction on the use of it could ”depress its value for estate tax purposes.”

The clause also ensured that should the Windfall Foundation not qualify for the charitable deductible per IRS regulations, the trustee should distribute benefits from Williams’ right of publicity to a charitable organization with a similar purpose.

“You’ve already removed the tax by giving the rights to charity,” Zwicker explained. “I could see [someone] doing it for privacy reasons.”