Michael Jackson's will never fixed his executors' pay. The ask: $109m
Michael Jackson's 2002 will named three executors, let them carry on his business, and said nothing about what they would be paid. Seventeen years after his death, his daughter Paris has asked a Los Angeles judge to cut the executor's share of the estate's entertainment income from 15% to 10%, against a request to approve $109 million for 2023 and 2024. What one clause in a Singapore will can settle, and what it cannot.
Read this in: EN · 简体 · 繁體 · ไทย · ID
The singer's daughter asks a Los Angeles judge to cut the executor's share from 15% to 10%
In a 12-page motion filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and reported on 28 and 29 October 2026, Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson's daughter, asked the judge supervising her father's estate to cut the pay of its executor, John Branca. She wants his share of the estate's gross entertainment-related income reduced from 15% to 10% for 2023, 2024 and later years, until he files complete accounts. A hearing is set for 4 December before Mitchell Beckloff, a retired judge.
The executor misses his own September deadline for accounts, yet asks the court to approve $109 million
Her complaint is about paperwork as much as money. The motion says Branca missed his own 15 September deadline, set under a court order of 24 April 2026, and filed accounts for 2023 and 2024 that were incomplete or 'nothing more than a placeholder'. Yet he asked the court to approve $109,219,648 in combined compensation for himself, his lawyers and his late co-executor, John McClain, who died in May aged 71. 'It is unclear how executor could calculate and distribute such an amount with any confidence and yet be unable to file complete and accurate accountings years later,' it says.
The estate calls the motion absurd and says it turned $500 million of debt into $2 billion
The estate called the motion 'nonsensical' and 'absurd'. Its statement says the executors waived executor compensation from the start and have only ever been paid a separate, court-ordered management fee for running the Michael Jackson business, and that some of the filings in dispute are not yet due. Its lawyers credit Branca with turning an estate that owed more than $500 million when Jackson died, on 25 June 2009, into one valued at about $2 billion. Nothing has been decided. In April the same judge ordered three estate lawyers to repay $625,000 in bonuses Branca had authorised, finding the amounts, on the evidence presented, 'arbitrary'.
A 2002 will hands three executors the business and never says what they will be paid
The will explains why a judge sets the rate. Jackson signed it in 2002. It gives his entire estate to the trustees of the Michael Jackson Family Trust, which he had restated on 22 March 2002; names Branca, McClain and Barry Siegel as co-executors; and gives them full power 'to continue any business enterprises'. It sets no rate of pay. Because the trust receives the estate only through the will, everything Jackson owned at his death passed first through the executors, under the probate court.
The executors value his name at $2,105, the IRS at $434 million, and a court takes 12 years
Tax kept that process open for years. The executors reported Jackson's image and likeness at $2,105 on the federal estate tax return; the IRS's notice of deficiency put it at $434,264,000. In May 2021, nearly 12 years after the death, the US Tax Court valued it at $4,153,912 in a 271-page opinion (T.C. Memo. 2021-48), and the three assets in dispute at about $111 million, against the roughly $482 million the IRS argued at trial.
- 1Deadline, 28 Oct 2026: Paris Jackson's 12-page motion in Los Angeles Superior Court (filed late the previous week); the executor's alleged breach of the court's order of 24 Apr 2026 on accountings; 2023 and 2024 accounts 'incomplete' and 'a placeholder'; hearing 4 Dec 2026 before retired Judge Mitchell Beckloff
- 2Billboard, 28 Oct 2026: the request to reduce the executor's compensation from 15% to 10% of the estate's gross entertainment-related income; the estate's response ('nonsensical', 'absurd'; executor compensation waived, a separate court-ordered management fee)
- 3Rolling Stone Australia, 29 Oct 2026: $109,219,648 in combined compensation for 2023–2024 for the executor, his lawyers and the late co-executor John McClain (died May 2026, aged 71); the missed 15 Sep deadline; debts of more than $500m at death, about $2bn now (the estate's lawyers); Judge Beckloff's ruling of 29 Apr 2026 on $625,000 in bonuses
- 4Last Will of Michael Joseph Jackson (2002), as published by CNN on 1 Jul 2009: entire estate to the trustees of the Michael Jackson Family Trust (restated 22 Mar 2002); co-executors John Branca, John McClain and Barry Siegel; power to continue any business enterprises; no rate of executor pay; read in full 30 Oct 2026
- 5ACTEC Capital Letter No. 55, 12 Jan 2022: Estate of Michael J. Jackson v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2021-48 — image and likeness $2,105 on the return, $434,264,000 in the IRS notice, $161,307,045 argued by the IRS at trial, $4,153,912 found by the court
- 6GYF, 5 May 2021: T.C. Memo. 2021-48, No. 17152-13, decided 3 May 2021, 271 pages; about $111m against the IRS's nearly $482m; the estate open and unsettled for nearly 12 years
- 7Probate and Administration Act 1934 (Singapore) s66 — the court may allow executors or administrators a commission not exceeding 5% on the value of the assets collected, guided by its approval or otherwise of their conduct; the registrar may exercise the power when taking the administration accounts; current version as at 30 Oct 2026, read on Singapore Statutes Online 30 Oct 2026
- 8Trustees Act 1967 (Singapore) Part 4B, ss41P–41S (payment under the trust instrument for a trust corporation or professional trustee; reasonable remuneration for a trust corporation where the instrument is silent; expenses) and s3 ('trustee', where the context admits, includes a personal representative); current version as at 30 Oct 2026, read on SSO 30 Oct 2026
- 9IRAS: Estate Duty removed for deaths on and after 15 February 2008
A will that is silent on pay lets a probate court set the fees on a $2 billion business
A will that lets executors run a business for as long as it takes, and says nothing about what they are paid, hands the question of pay to whoever supervises them. In California that is the probate court, so the pay of the people running a business valued at about $2 billion is fixed, reviewed and contested in court filings, year after year, with the heirs as the only check.
An heir who cannot see the accounts cannot judge a fee, so she fights over the deadlines
The heirs' only lever is the accounts. A beneficiary who cannot see the numbers cannot judge the fee, so the fight becomes one about deadlines: an order in April, a date the executor chose in September, a placeholder filing, and now a motion asking that the fee fall as the price of lateness. None of that is in the will, because the will says nothing about pay, about accounts, or about what happens when they are late.
His trust waits behind an estate that is still open in court 17 years after his death
Jackson did build a trust. But the will is how his property reaches it, so the trust waits behind the probate estate, and the estate is still open 17 years after his death: about 12 of those years spent arguing with the IRS over what his name was worth, and the years since with its accounts and its fees before a judge.
A Singapore will or trust deed can fix the executor's pay in one clause, with the rate, the base, a cap, and accounts by a set date with no fee for a late year; without such a clause the court may allow no more than 5% of the assets collected, judged on the executor's conduct; what Singapore cannot do is stop an heir asking a judge whether the clause was kept.
A Californian's estate stays with California and the IRS, so Singapore changes nothing for him
Limits first. Jackson was an American living in California. California law governs his will and his trust, a Los Angeles judge will decide this motion, and the United States taxes a citizen's estate wherever the assets sit, so nothing in Singapore law would have changed his tax bill or this hearing. The useful question is what a founder whose family and business are in Singapore can write down, and what Singapore would not change.
A Singapore estate since 2008 pays no estate duty, so no 12-year fight over a name's value
The tax fight would not exist. Singapore removed estate duty for deaths on and after 15 February 2008, and has no inheritance or gift tax. There would be no return valuing a name at $2,105, no $434 million counter-valuation, and no 12 years before a tax court. That is the part of the delay a Singapore estate simply does not have.
A Singapore court may allow an executor up to 5% of assets, judged on his conduct
Pay has a statutory ceiling. Section 66 of the Probate and Administration Act 1934, read on Singapore Statutes Online on 30 October 2026, lets the court allow executors or administrators a commission of not more than 5% of the value of the assets they collect, and tells the court to be guided by whether it approves of how they ran the administration. The registrar can decide it while taking the executors' accounts. The base is the assets collected, not a share of a business's income every year, and the executor's conduct is weighed in the same breath as the fee.
Five per cent of a $2 billion estate is still up to $100 million, so the will must decide
That ceiling is not small. Five per cent of a $2 billion estate is up to $100 million, and a business that must be run for years does not fit neatly into a one-off commission. So the statute is a backstop. The tool is the will.
A founder writes the trustee's fee into his will and the Trustees Act makes it binding
A will can set the pay itself. Part 4B of the Trustees Act 1967, read the same day, lets a trust company or a professional trustee be paid under a clause in the trust instrument, even for work a lay trustee could do (section 41Q), and gives a trust company reasonable pay where the instrument is silent (section 41R); the Act's definitions extend 'trustee' to a personal representative where the context admits.
The clause stops the executor's fee for any year his accounts arrive late
So the founder writes four things: the rate, the base it is charged on, a cap, and the condition, which is audited accounts to every adult beneficiary by a fixed date each year and no fee drawn for any year whose accounts are late. Paris Jackson is asking a judge to impose that penalty after the fact. A clause would have imposed it from the first year, without a motion.
A founder moves the business into a lifetime trust, and his executors have nothing to run
Better still, the business never enters the estate. A founder who moves the operating company into a lifetime trust with a licensed trust company while he is alive leaves his executors almost nothing to run: no grant over the catalogue, no court-approved management fee. The trustee appoints the company's board, the board hires the people who run the business on written contracts, and a protector named in the deed approves their pay. Jackson had the trust; his will is how his estate reaches it.
Heirs can still sue over a fee, but a written clause ends the fight over the rule
What Singapore would not change. A clause does not stop an heir going to court, and a court will still ask whether a fee was earned and whether the accounts are honest. The 5% ceiling is a discretion, not a formula, and the conduct test cuts both ways: an executor who turned more than $500 million of debt into an estate worth about $2 billion would have an argument for the full amount. What a written clause removes is the argument about what the rule is.
A son asks his father three questions about the executor's pay while both can still sign
For the reader whose parent's will names an executor to run a business, three questions are worth asking while everyone can still sign. What is the executor paid, on what base, and is there a cap? Who receives the accounts, by what date, and what happens if they are late? And does the business sit in the estate, or in a trust that never needs a grant? Asking how the people looking after the family's assets are paid is stewardship, not suspicion.
Paris Jackson, the daughter — a 12-page motion and a hearing on 4 December 2026; her only lever is the deadline for the accounts, which the will never set
John Branca, the executor — the business since 2009 under a court-ordered management fee of 15% of gross entertainment-related income, which she wants cut to 10%; a request to approve $109,219,648 for 2023–2024 for himself, his lawyers and the late John McClain
The Michael Jackson Family Trust — everything he owned, but only through the will, after the executors and the probate court; still waiting behind an open estate 17 years on
The IRS — a notice valuing his name at $434,264,000; the Tax Court's $4,153,912 in May 2021, nearly 12 years after the death
The same family in Singapore — no estate duty (deaths on or after 15 Feb 2008); a commission capped at 5% of assets collected and judged on conduct (PAA s66); a fee clause with accounts by a date (Trustees Act s41Q), or a lifetime trust that keeps the business out of the estate
The reader whose parent's will names an executor — three questions: what the executor is paid and on what base, who receives the accounts by when, and whether the business sits in the estate or in a trust
A counterfactual, not advice. The verified machinery is on the Singapore page; where your family stands is the briefing.
From the case files: Executors still holding the estate ten years on: Evergreen and Chang Yung-fa's sealed will