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b_b  ·  4250 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who owns you after you die? - Boston.com

That is an interesting point. An identity is only valuable commercially if you choose to use it commercially. It has no inherent value. Given that this is a relatively new phenomenon, how does one them decide what the taxable value is? With real estate we can guess based on other similar properties; stocks and bonds have nominal values; even rights to a book could have projected sales; but what is an identity? With real estate and stocks the value may increase dramatically when not sold for long periods of time. If you let an identity sit with no activity, it could become more desirable, or the public could forget and it becomes worthless. This is another giant check in the con column.