Ronald D. Arnold’s probate documents indicate that his daughter, Kristi Noem, has misrepresented the family’s 1994 estate tax situation.

According to the inventory filed in Probate Case No. 94-3017 on December 7, 1994, the net value of Ronald D. Arnold’s taxable estate (gross value minus debts) was $1,108,977.

Rep. Noem has told the press that her father had not signed a will:

“My dad had done estate planning, he had had a will completed, but he hadn’t gotten it signed before he was killed,” Noem told HuffPost on Wednesday [Arthur Delaney, “Kristi Noem Says Her Story Shows How the Estate Tax Hurts Families. Not Quite,” Huffington Post, 2017.12.07].

However, on June 6, 1994, Judge Robert L. Timm authorized Arnold’s brothers Robert A. Arnold and Dennis Arnold to co-execute the Last Will and Testament of Ronald D. Arnold dated August 3, 1976:

According to the final decree signed by Judge Ronald K. Roehr on December 22, 1995, Ronald Arnold’s will split his estate between his wife Corinne and a trust managed by Robert and Dennis. Corinne’s portion of the estate, as reported in Huffington Post last week, qualified for the marital deduction, meaning the federal government levied no estate tax on that portion of Arnold’s estate. Estate tax was levied on the portion allotted to the trust managed by Robert and Dennis, to the tune of $84,454:

Kristi and her three siblings also received a portion of their father’s estate and thus incurred $330 each in state inheritance tax:

$85,774 in federal and state estate taxes is no small sum.But the 98%+ federal portion of that tax is the logical outcome of Ronald Arnold’s choice to split his estate between his wife and his brothers. And Ronald Arnold’s will indicates he was aware of the federal estate tax implications of his choice:

$85,774 is also a small sum compared to the $1.24 million in life insurance and annuity transfers that Corinne Arnold received after her husband’s death:

The Arnolds could have used less than 8% of just the non-taxable portion of the life insurance and annuities to pay all of their federal and state estate taxes and still have had over a million dollars left to cover medical and funeral costs, service some of the farm’s debt, and pay for ongoing operations.

Indeed, Corinne Arnold appears to have loaned over a million dollars to the estate:

These probate documents establish these key facts that call into question Kristi Noem’s narrative of a family farm almost swamped by federal estate tax: