Trusts

Asset Protection is Inheritance Protection

Published on: September 8, 2023 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Two overriding questions govern your choices in an elder law estate plan. First, what will happen to your assets when you pass away? Second, what will happen to your assets if you need long-term care? A comprehensive plan covers both issues. You must protect assets from going to long-term care costs so that the assets may transfer to your beneficiaries instead.

Plan A, and the best protection from long-term care costs, is long-term care insurance. Factors to consider include the daily benefit amount and an inflation rider that keeps pace with the increasing cost of nursing homes. Long-term care insurance also pays for home health aides, which allows you to “age in place,” rather than go to a facility.

If you don’t have, or cannot get, long-term care insurance, Plan B is the Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT). Assets that have been in the MAPT for a minimum of five years are protected from nursing home costs and, under upcoming laws, two and a half years for home care.

Advice on Succession Planning in 2022

Published on: May 5, 2022 | by Ettinger Law Firm

The stock market over the last ten years has increased the valuation of many retirement accounts. Consequently, many people interested in estate planning are focused less on internal growth necessary for succession planning than at other times.

Inflation is much like gravity. Both rise and fall. With inflation occurring at substantial levels during the war in Ukraine, people interested in making the most of their estate plans should recognize that their plans ultimately might require a proactive effort. This article reviews some important details that you should consider when creating a strong succession plan.

Focus on Your Goal

What You Need to Know about Living Trusts

Published on: April 18, 2022 | by Ettinger Law Firm

If you’re creating a plan for what will happen to your estate after you pass away or become incapacitated, you’ve likely familiar with the advantages you can realize by creating a living trust. Items positioned in a trust do not pass through probate, which can be a costly and time-intensive process. Living trusts (also referred to as revocable trusts) let a person appoints a trust administrator to look after an estate after the creator passes away.

Living trusts often simplify how assets in estates are passed on. Unfortunately, countless opportunities exist to make errors, especially if you’re tasked with transferring items to a trust. Certain kinds of accounts should never pass into a trust. These certain accounts should not pass into a trust even in situations where they represent the majority of an estate. This category includes retirement accounts like 401(k) plans as well as other types of retirement accounts.

If you pass on assets to a trust, the Internal Revenue Service will classify the interaction as a distribution and you will be required to pay income taxes.

The Advantage of Utilizing SPA Trusts in Your Estate Plan

Published on: February 1, 2022 | by Ettinger Law Firm

In times of economic uncertainty, estate plans can benefit substantially from flexibility. As the country both continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as face the challenges brought on by new strains of COVID-19, it’s a good idea to consider how to make your estate plan flexible. Not to mention, looming changes brought on by changes to tax law also make it a good idea to consider flexibility while creating an estate plan.

What SPA Trusts Do

Special power of appointment (SPA) trusts (or as they are sometimes called SPAT trusts) is a type of irrevocable trust in which either the creator or settlor of the trust grants appointment power to another person. The person who receives these powers functions in a non-fiduciary role to direct the trustee to make distributions to anyone except for the person who made the appointment of powers.

Company Claims to Sell Social Security Numbers

Published on: December 21, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Maintaining your Social Security number is something we have all been told to keep close, and to be wary of releasing to companies unless absolutely needed. Your Social Security number are a series of numbers that help identify individuals in the United States as either citizens, permanent residents, or temporary workers, for tax reporting purposes. If closely held, this series of numbers provides an easy way for you to identify yourself for various reasons including obtaining bills, loans, applying for jobs, and when attempting to contact any government agency.

While the internet has provided us with a vast amount of knowledge, it has also provided hackers with a way of obtaining our personal data once entered into a database, for credit card processing, or many of the other reasons we use personal information. A website is recently under scrutiny when they began selling Social Security Numbers for $250 dollars each. The website guarantees that as long as the seeker of the Social Security Number has the correct name, last known address, and date of birth of the person they are looking for, they will provide the correct Social Security Number.

The way in which Peopleinfofind.com, the website behind this scheme is able to claim what they are doing is legal is by stating they they provide this information in order to help debt collectors or those who have forgotten their Social recover it or locate an individual. However, the Better Business Bureau has caught on and is now investigating their website. While it is legal for employers to verify an employee’s Social Security Number with the Social Security Administration, attempting to find someone’s Social Security Number through a reverse lookup should be seriously questioned.

Why Consider a Special Needs Trust?

Published on: July 28, 2015 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Supplemental Needs Trusts (also called Special Needs Trusts) have become fairly popular in recent years. These trusts are designed to protect a disabled person’s assets in order to ensure the greatest amount of funds available for care and support. In 1993, Congress passed legislation in 42 U.S.C. § 1396 et seq. that specifically allows a disabled person to exempt assets from public aid determinations. You can click here to read more about how the government treats these unique trusts. One look at the complex federal regulations that control these trusts should be reason enough to consult an experienced elder law attorney to find out if it is right for your situation.

How much money can a disabled person keep and still be eligible for public aid?

In general, for a person to qualify for Medicaid, he or she must be impoverished. This means having less than $2000 in personal assets. Previously, there were fairly strict provisions that made it difficult for a disabled person to keep assets and still qualify for Medicaid funding of long-term care. Nursing home and rehabilitation costs can be exceedingly expensive, and people are often concerned that a disabled family member could quickly spend all of their assets on care and support before qualifying for government assistance.

Back to the Basics – Moving after Retirement

Published on: June 24, 2015 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Retirees are acutely aware of the future, and they have usually spent between thirty and forty years saving up for it. While many dream of beach living and travel, current numbers show that most retirees opt instead to continue living in their home. Historically, the biggest move that a retired person makes is from their home to a nursing facility when they are unable to care for themselves anymore, but new trends are coming up in moving after retirement that people should be made aware of.

Trends in Retirement Moving

More seniors today are moving after retirement than in the past. In fact, the likelihood of moving has tripled between the age groups of 1968-1984 and 1996-2011. Interestingly, another trend being noticed by experts is that the average age at the time of the move is considerably lower than it was before. More young, wealthy retirees are choosing to sell their home and move into a retirement community. This is drastically different than past generations, where wealth meant that a person could remain living in their own home significantly longer.

Virtual Representation of Minors and Beneficiaries

Published on: May 29, 2015 | by Ettinger Law Firm

While parents make the vast majority of decisions for their children, it comes as a surprise to many that they cannot automatically make decisions regarding a trust or estate in their child’s name. Estate law protects the interests of the beneficiary above all others, even from the parents of a minor beneficiary. If a parent is not able to sign for their child’s trust or estate, a court appointed guardian is assigned that is also known as virtual representation.

Virtual Representation

The concept of virtual representation occurs when an adult is appointed to speak on behalf of a minor trust beneficiary. Many of the provisions regarding virtual representation are found in the Uniform Trust Code (UTC), Uniform Probate Code (UPC), and state laws. Essentially, virtual representation gives a minor beneficiary the power to speak through an adult that actually has legal capacity to make decisions. A virtual representative can be appointed for minors, incapacitated adults, unborn children, unascertained beneficiaries, and adult beneficiaries that cannot be found.

Who Should Run the Family Trust?

Published on: February 4, 2015 | by Ettinger Law Firm

When a trust is created, most often the creator turns to a trusted friend, relative, or confidant to oversee it. This makes a lot of sense to most people because the purpose of a trust is often personal in nature, and the creator wants someone to run the trust that has been a part of their life for many years. However, things like friendship, family drama, and emotions can all complicate the decisions that a trustee makes for a family trust in regards to carrying out the terms of the trust.

Use of Non-professional Trustees

The use of non-professional trustee has been growing as more people set up trusts to operate during their own lifetimes. A lot of these creators do not believe that they need to hire a professional because they can keep an eye on the trust while they are still alive. People are creating lifetime trusts for a variety of reasons. Many are looking ahead at minimizing estate taxes if their assets are above the $5.43 million exemption limit ($10.86 million for a couple). Others are attempting to minimize the level of current state taxes on their assets or gain financial control of their legacy.

Back to the Basics: What is the Difference Between Revocable and Irrevocable Trusts?

Published on: May 1, 2014 | by Ettinger Law Firm

While many New York residents familiar with and have an existing will in place in the event of their death, most people do not realize that estate planning documents extend far beyond a last will and testament. The world of estate planning documents includes not only living wills and advanced medical directives, but also trusts. Trusts offer several benefits associated with them, and come in two forms: revocable and irrevocable.

Benefits of Having a Trust

Trusts can not only provide for loved ones upon death, but they can provide for the person who created the trust during their lifetime. This is important in cases where the creator has a health issue, a mental disability or incapacitation, and other scenarios. Trusts can be administered without the need to involve a probate court, and can therefore protect privacy as to the contents of the trust. Trusts also serve as protection of assets for trust beneficiaries, and offer a wide variety of options in creating them to suit different needs.