tax deductible

A couple of months ago I was speaking here about J. Paul Getty after visiting the museum in Malibu.

Now his GRANDSON HAS DIED. In a 1973 incident that I was far too young to notice, J. Paul Getty III was kidnapped by “Calabrian bandits” in Italy and had an ear severed by the gang. But the weirdest part of the obituary may be this:

“Eventually the kidnappers reduced their demands to around $3 million [from $14 million]. According to the 1995 book, ‘Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty’ by John Pearson, the eldest Mr. Getty paid $2.2 million, the maximum that his accountants said would be tax deductible.”