US tax court hands win to Michael Jackson heirs

Michael Jackson arrives at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse for his trial in Santa Maria, California (Aaron Lambert/Santa Maria Times via AP, Pool, File)

A US tax court has handed a major victory to the estate of Michael Jackson in a years-long battle, finding that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wildly inflated the value of the singer’s assets and image at the time of his death.

The IRS had put the value of three disputed aspects of Jackson’s worth at the time of his 2009 death at about 482 million dollars (£347.4 million).