Steve Jobs Appears To Have Protected His Estate With Living Trusts
October 10, 2011
Soon after the tragic news broke of the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and innovator extraordinaire, people began wondering what would become of his fortune. Forbes recently estimated Jobs’ wealth at $7 billion.
ABCNews.com recently interviewed Danielle Mayoras on this very topic. It reported how Jobs, the largest single shareholder of Disney (which of course owns ABC News), has received $242 million in Disney stock dividends alone, since 2006. How much is his Disney stock worth? $4.4 billion, for 138 million shares, good for 7.4 percent of the total Disney stock.
As Danielle pointed out in the interview, usually people with that much wealth do the proper estate planning, including using living trusts, charitable bequests, and more. Not only does this keep their affairs private, it can help minimize estate taxes. Topping out at 35%, the current estate tax laws — while much lower than in years past — will obviously take a big bite out of Jobs’ family fortune. That comes out to almost $2.45 billion in taxes, if Jobs did not do the proper planning.
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