Royalties once we’re gone

[daveydad]

Working on a will. Anyone have info on how royalties should be handled after a composer is deceased? I don’t see much on this subject out there. BMI does have an estate form a person can fill out to claim royalties but how about other sources of royalties – Paypal, checks, CD Baby, etc? Thanks.

[Art Munson]

There are companies that will administrate for a percentage.

[Mark_Petrie]

Advice I got was to assign the royalties to your company, and wrap the company within a living trust. Trust income goes to whomever you decide (usually your kids).

The trick is how that actually plays out, does someone have to administer the earnings / tax etc for the company far into the future? I guess so…

[Art Munson]

Yep, that’s what we did. A living trust and assigned all music related matters to a company that does music administration.

[daveydad]

So how are taxes handled? Most royalties have a social security number attached to them…. 1099 forms.

[Mark_Petrie]

You can assign them to your company and your company pays the tax.

[Author]

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