With careful Medicaid planning, you may be able to preserve some of your estate for your children or other heirs while meeting the Medicaid asset limit. In Illinois, a nursing home resident covered by Medicaid may have no more than $2,000 in “countable” assets.
The main distinction is that a 401(k) — named for the section of the tax code that discusses it — is an employer-based plan, while an IRA is an individual plan, but there are other differences as well. Strohschein Law Group will help you develop an estate plan with all of these considerations and more. Let us help you do the homework!
The nation’s elderly and disabled Social Security recipients will receive a 1.7 percent increase in payments in 2015.
This IRS rule has nothing to do with Medicaid’s asset transfer rules. While the $14,000 that you gave to your grandchild this year will be exempt from any gift tax, Medicaid will still count it as a transfer that could make you ineligible for nursing home benefits for a certain amount of time should you apply for them within the next five years.
Illinois is not a state with filial responsibility laws, however 28 states currently have filial responsibility laws. These laws usually make adult children responsible for their parents’ care if their parents can’t afford to take care of themselves, but some of the laws also make parents responsible for their childrens’ care. Where do your parents live?
When a person declares bankruptcy, an individual retirement account (IRA) is one of the assets that is beyond the reach of creditors, but what about an IRA that has been inherited?
When you die, your debts do not expire with you. Most debt still needs to be paid off, if possible, although who is responsible for paying the debt depends on the type of debt, and some assets are protected from being used to satisfy a debt.
Here is an interesting point of view that most estate planning attorneys would agree with. We know it is easy to run to an office supply store or even grab forms from the internet that guide you on how to write your own will, but it really isn’t ever as “simple” as you imagine it to be. There are several issues that need to be thought of and addressed when preparing documents such as a will, powers of attorney, and a trust and you don’t want loop holes to cause trouble for the family that ends up in probate. The unexpected can be planned for and consider issues typically not thought of.
Many seniors consider transferring assets for estate and long-term care planning purposes, or just to help out children and grandchildren. Gifts and transfers to a trust often make a lot of sense. They can save money in taxes and long-term care expenditures, and they can help out family members in need and serve as expressions of love and caring. But some gifts can cause problems, for both the generous donor and the recipient.
The irony is that using a boilerplate will form not only frustrated Ms. Aldrich’s testamentary intent, but ultimately cost her estate far, far more than a simple consultation with an estate planning or elder law attorney would have.