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For over a decade it was sound and perfectly legal advice for financial advisors and elder law practitioners to advise their married clients to file and suspend their social security benefits, thereby maximizing their financial returns. The basic advice was to advise a married couple to have the spouse who…
As the new year opens it is a good time to review all of your legal estate planning decisions and tweak any previous documents that you think need to be modified. This requires us to get back to the basics of estate planning . For those scenarios that deal with…
Throughout the twentieth century, the Federal government took various legal steps to positively impact the lives of senior citizens, the disabled and the elderly in general. Throughout the 1930s a variety of retirement and pension programs were enacted, most significantly social security. 1952 saw the funding…
New York along with every other state, most United States administered territories and even The Bureau of Indian Affairs for Indian Tribes has an adult protective services enabling statute. New York’s adult protective services statute is found in the archaically entitled Title 81 of the New York State Mental Hygiene…
An intentionally defective grantor trust is an extremely effective tool that accomplishes multiple objectives. First, it helps to minimize gift or transfer tax liability that a person may have to pay if the asset passed through normal probate process or it were gifted to the intended recipient. Second, it helps…
The Eastern District of Virginia Bankruptcy Court issued an opinion on a case with a unique factual scenario almost three years ago, on February 6, 2013 in the case of In Re Woodworth, (Bankr. E.D. Va., No. 11-11051-BFK, Feb. 6, 2013). The case is important because it speaks to the…
It happens often enough that a parent for many reasons decides to disinherit one, several or all of his/her children. At the same time, this is often not a controversial decision and is just as common both understandable and predicable. Perhaps a person promised their estate to a specific child,…
On December 19, 2014 President Obama signed into law a number of tax and financial measures to extend certain tax benefits. More specifically, the legislation enacted the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2013, which amends section 529(e) of the United States Tax Code, to allow for tax-free…
Contrary to the European model, American parents are legally free to disinherit their children, but at the same time, they cannot simply forget or omit their children in their will by mistake. If the child is specifically addressed in the will and, at the same time, the will either fails…
WHAT IS BEST FIT Both an ABLE Act account and a special needs trusts try to accomplish essentially the same thing. Both attempt to ensure that a special needs child or person are financially planned for through various legal and financial means so as to enrich the life of the…