How Does California Rank on the Long-Term Care Scorecard?
September 15, 2011
One of the primary concerns of the aging population is long-term care. As the life expectancy of Americans goes up so does the expectation that they will someday need some form of long-term care. You may not know whether that care will happen in a hospital, a nursing home, or in your own home, but you can be sure that it will be expensive.
How expensive will long term care be? It turns out the answer to this question depends a great deal on where you live. The AARP, The Commonwealth Fund, and The SCAN Foundation recently released a report which they call “The Long Term Scorecard,” which compares states and ranks them according to categories. The website Web MD has an article explaining how to use the scorecard and what it means.
The article in Web MD states that “Long-term care is unaffordable for middle income families, according to [The Long Term Scorecard report.] Even in states where nursing home care is most affordable, such care averages 171% of an older person’s household income. The national average is 241%.”
Some states, however, have been making the issue of long-term care a priority, and have been wrestling with questions such as how to make it more affordable to residents and how to provide support to family caregivers. According to the article in Web MD, they’ve broken down the information in “The Scorecard” to help readers understand which states provide the best support (either financial, social, emotional or legal) for the elderly and their caregivers.
The article “ranks states’ performance according to four categories: 1. Affordability and access, 2. Patient choice of both provider and setting, 3. Quality of life and care, and 4. Support for family caregivers.” The states ranked highest overall were Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii and Wisconsin; while the lowest ranking states turned out to be Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana. California ranked 15th. (For more information on how the states were ranked and what each ranking means please read the article here.)
Perhaps the most important lesson to take from all this is that no matter where you live, or what your health is like right now, it is very likely that you will need some kind of long-term care in the future, and that that care will be expensive. Burying your head in the sand or choosing to “think about it when the time comes” will only make things worse for you and for your family. Take steps now to prepare now for whatever the future may bring. We would be happy to help you take those steps.
Leaving a Gift or Bequest to a Special Needs Child
September 10, 2011
If you have a child with special needs, planning your estate takes on a whole new dimension; especially, as this article in Forbes points out, now that “state and local governments are tightening income restrictions for medical benefits and supportive services, which are typically paid for by Social Security and Medicaid. Those services are tough to find—or afford—in the private sector for many adults with disabilities so severe that they can’t live alone… As a result, it’s increasingly important to structure an inheritance in a way that won’t disqualify a child for such benefits down the road.”
Structuring an estate plan with a special needs child as a beneficiary takes special consideration. Because a direct inheritance could disrupt that child’s public benefits, “some parents simply leave another child all their assets in their will. If there are three children, they might leave two-thirds to the child who lives closest to the one with special needs.”
Unfortunately this particular strategy is rife with possible dangers. The heir may be tempted to use his special needs sibling’s money for his own purposes, or could decide he’s simply tired of being a caretaker. Even worse, the heir could pass away unexpectedly, in which case the entire inheritance would go to the heir’s spouse or children, with nothing left for the special needs child.
The article gives a number of suggestions for safe and reliable ways to leave your special needs child an inheritance, including leaving property to your child in a Qualified Personal Residence Trust, setting up a housing collective, and the tried-and-true option of a Special Needs Trust. But we know that each family is going to have different needs and goals, and there isn’t one solution that will work across the board.
If you have a special needs child your very best course of action is to contact a knowledgeable and experienced attorney to help you understand your options and choose the one that will best protect your child. See Q & A’s on Special Needs Trusts.
Some Tax Saving Strategies from the Wall Street Journal
September 3, 2011
Income, estate, and other federal tax levies have commonly been a bone of contention between those with different political ideologies; but the current conflict has reached unusual heights, with various million- and billionaires publicly expressing their views (pro or against) about current tax laws. Of course, million- or billionaires aren’t the only ones with strong opinions about taxes.
If you feel that you pay too much in taxes, Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal has some tips to help you save on taxes in the future. Much of his article is tongue-in-cheek, but the suggestions are valuable ones. Of special interest to our firm and our clients are four of the tips nestled in the middle of the article:
Give to your family. “Until the end of 2012 you can give $5 million, tax-free… In addition you can give $13,000 a year to each recipient — each child or grandchild — and a spouse can do the same. So a married couple with, say, three children and eight grandchildren can give another $286,000 a year, on top of that one-off $10 million. Over ten or twenty years that really adds up.”
Put your grandkids—and great grandkids—through college. “Money paid directly to schools or colleges escapes estate taxes.” Furthermore, if you contribute to a 529 educational savings account that money can be tucked away—and eventually used by the student for whom it is intended—tax free (so long as it is used for educational purposes.)
Buy life insurance. Proceeds from a life insurance policy can go to your beneficiaries tax-free upon your death, although you may have to make some arrangements ahead of time. The article states that “Typically you put the policy in an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust… The premiums that you pay annually are gifts to the beneficiaries… And when you die, the proceeds of the policy go to the trust, for the beneficiaries, free of estate tax.”
Talk to an estate planner. “There are other moves that can cut your estate tax, too. A Qualified Personal Residence Trust can slash the estate taxes on a residence. A Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, or GRAT, can slash them on an investment portfolio. So, too, can setting up a Family Limited Partnership. Financial planners say this is a great time to put investments — like stock — into a GRAT.”
If you have questions about these tax-saving strategies, or other strategies that can help you preserve your estate for your heirs, please contact our office. We can help you determine what your best options are to help protect your assets—and your family—in the years to come.
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