Warning: This post contains spoilers for season 5, episode 13 of Yellowstone.
Not all hope is lost in terms of saving Yellowstone‘s iconic Dutton ranch.
In the wake of a sprawling auction that saw Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) manage to raise over $30 million from selling off the ranch’s livestock and equipment, her brother Kayce (Luke Grimes) realizes a way they may be able to save the family ranch. It’s so impressive that it even leaves Beth — who is notoriously the first to scheme a way out of any situation — stunned that she didn’t think of it first.
“Let’s take your car. How much is that worth?” Kayce asks Beth about her Bentley, to which she quips, “It’s a lease so it’s not worth anything to me.”
Paramount
Kayce, determined to get an answer, pushes further and asks, “But what if you owned it?”
“$300,000,” she replies, prompting Kayce to question, “And if you sold that to me for $1, would that be illegal?”
Beth retorts, “It would be stupid but it wouldn’t be illegal.”
“OK. So, I buy this car for $1. And then I take this $300,000 car that I bought for $1 and I register it. What do I pay in sales tax? Is it based off of what I paid or the value of the car?” Kayce asks Beth to which she says, “What are you cooking?”
When he presses her to answer the question she says, “Tax is based off of what you paid for.”
“That’s what I thought,” Kayce says as he walks to his truck and begins to drive off.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Beth asks as she runs to his truck. “Who?” she asks Kayce, to which he replies “Give me the day just to make sure.”
“You are smarter than you look, little brother,” Beth says as she leans into the car to give Kacye a kiss on the cheek.
When Kayce’s wife Monica Dutton (Kelsey Asbille) asks what his plan is, he keeps mum on the details and says, “The only way to save this place, you got to give it away.”
In this mock situation, Kayce is inferring that the family stage a “sale” to a close trusted party for an amount way undervaluing its actual cost that will defer any personal tax burden and risk of losing the land entirely from the family, which is already strained after the shocking deaths of John Dutton and ranch hand Colby Mayfield.
Paramount+
The episode ends on that note, but leaves questions over who Kayce may enlist in his simple tax loophole scheme to help preserve the Dutton ranch for years to come.
In an earlier scene while dancing with Monica, Kayce tells her that his plan differs from his sister’s.
“I have a different plan, one that guarantees a future,” Kayce tells Monica. “I’m not telling anybody. No yet. But I know in my heart it’s going to work. And I know it’s the right thing.”
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The series finale of Yellowstone airs Sunday, Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Paramount Network.
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