Kin Consider Selling Off Scott Ranch : Probate: Relatives face hefty inheritance taxes. The millionaire was killed during a drug raid at his Malibu property.

Survivors of Donald P. Scott, the reclusive Malibu millionaire shot dead in a drug raid last fall, are considering the sale of Scott’s isolated 200-acre ranch in Ventura County to pay inheritance taxes.

“When I looked at all the assets we’ve collected to date, there’s not enough cash to pay the taxes,” said estate executor Nicholas C. Gutsue on Tuesday. “The ranch is one (big) asset.”

Gutsue said he is talking with real estate brokers about listing the Mulholland Highway property for $7 million. Its sale would help Scott’s three youngest children pay inheritance taxes, said Gutsue, a Beverly Hills lawyer who was private counsel to Scott before his death last October.

According to probate documents filed in Ventura County Superior Court, the children would receive two-thirds of the estate and Scott’s widow would receive one-third.

Additional claims have been made by other Scott relatives. His adult daughter was excluded from the will.

Widow Frances Plante Scott, 39, who has said she wants to buy the picturesque ranch, could not be reached for comment on whether she now thinks liquidation is the better course. She is not represented by Gutsue.

Under federal law, inheritors can receive up to $600,000 without paying taxes. But inheritance taxes on assets greater than $600,000 begin at 37% and are 50% on assets above $2.5 million. Widows who jointly own property with their husbands are exempt. It is not known whether Frances Scott, the millionaire’s wife for 2 1/2 months, was joint owner of the ranch.

Scott, 61, the heir to a European-based chemicals fortune, was killed during an early morning, multi-agency raid on his ranch just across the Ventura County line from Malibu.

No drugs were found. And while Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury concluded that a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy shot the gun-wielding Scott in self-defense, the prosecutor also concluded that a main reason for the raid was to seize Scott’s ranch for the government.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block has denied the charge, saying his department and other law enforcement agencies acted “in good faith” when descending on Scott’s Trail’s End Ranch.

Spokesmen for state and federal agencies--which Scott’s friends said could have benefited from the ranch seizure under federal forfeiture laws--said Tuesday that they are not potential buyers.

“There’s just zero chance that we would touch that with a 10-foot pole,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. “If we were to do that, everybody would say, ‘Ah ha, there’s the conspiracy.’ The widow has been quoted as saying that she would never sell to any government agency, and I’m sure that’s probably true.”

David E. Gackenback, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said Trail’s End Ranch was never among his agency’s top 70 sites for acquisition.

“We are buying strictly high-priority acquisitions,” he said.

In addition to the ranch, which he valued at a minimum of $5 million, Gutsue has said the recluse had stock accounts in New York and Australia and bank accounts and trust funds in New York and Switzerland.

Another principal asset of Scott’s estate is a collection of lawsuits pending against several local, state and federal agencies involved in the raid.

The lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages allege that officers violated the rancher’s constitutional rights by conducting an unreasonable search of his property, using excessive force against him and depriving him of his right to life, liberty and property.