Where There's A Will There's A Way

The granite mausoleum she built for herself cost a cool $1.4 million; it's keeping the Queen of Mean nice and cool now, for which she must be eternally grateful. I bet it's plenty hot where she is.

Despite the extravagance, the cost of it barely made a dent in her fortune; at the time of her death real estate mogul Leona Helmsley had a very real estate herself, valued at $2.5 billion. Much of it will likely go to charity, which is at least a legal form of tax evasion. Who said prison doesn't lead to rehabilitation?

Since she famously felt that "only little people pay taxes", she's about to get her last cackle. It seems that giving it all away is the best way to avoid paying - you guessed it - estate taxes on it.

But what would a eulogy be without a suitable anecdote to sum it all up, one which highlights her oh-so charitable nature?

Helmsley didn't have a generous bone in her body - even her funny bone snarled - and for her charity always began at home, preferably someone else's. When her son Jay Panzirer died one of the richest women in the world sued his widow Mimi for all of his possessions, leaving her former daughter-in-law and four grandchildren virtually penniless.

Which must be making it extra hard to get that camel through the eye of a needle right about now.
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