Six years after his death and legal battle, the estate of pop music icon Prince Rogers Nelson will be valued at roughly $156.4 million under a settlement between the IRS and his heirs.
The Moguldom Nation reports that the Internal Revenue Service and the estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank & Trust, agreed to value Prince’s estate $156.4 million, a figure that the artist’s heirs have also accepted.
The valuation dwarfs Comerica’s earlier $82.3 million appraisal. The Internal Revenue Service in 2020 had valued the estate at $163.2 million.
“It has been a long six years,” said L. Londell McMillan, an attorney for three of Prince’s siblings said, at a hearing on Friday, Jan. 16, in Carver County District Court. The legal battle began in 2016 after Prince died of a fentanyl overdose at age 57 without a will.
READ: News: Battle Over Prince’s Estate Could Go On For Years
Since the music icon had no spouse and his only son died at 1 week old, Prince’s six siblings are the heirs and had the first claims to his estate.
In the time it took to resolve, two of the heirs died and two others are in their 80s.
The estate will be evenly divided between the oldest three heirs, their families and New York music company Primary Wave, which bought Prince’s three younger siblings’ rights to his estate, AP reported.
The settlement comes after Comerica sued the IRS in 2020 in U.S. Tax Court, accusing the agency of miscalculating the value of Prince’s estate. While the two entities agreed on the value of Prince’s real estate, his intangibles – like the value of her music – were a point of contention.
Between attorney fees and taxes, the estate will have to pay tens of millions of dollars.
However, there should still be an ample amount of inheritance left for the heirs. Though Comerica advised Prince’s siblings to go to trial with the IRS if they want to lower the estate taxes, the siblings have communicated they want to settle with the government.
“Instead, the members of the heir group have uniformly communicated to (Comerica) their strong desire that the estate settle with the taxing authorities,” the settlement filing said.
