The AFA’s Educating America tour is a nation-wide educational initiative connecting communities with information about Alzheimer’s disease, brain health, caregiving, and more. Participants had the opportunity to hear from experts on Alzheimer’s research, caregiving, elder law, and advance planning.
Mark’s presentation was titled, Why a Will is Not Enough, and included a range of topics from lifetime planning and financial decision making, to long-term care and medicaid planning.
Update! Mark’s presentation has been made available and is embedded below:
Comments Off on Financial Planning for a Life with MS: Slides from the Rhode Island Spring Education Conference
It was my pleasure and privilege to participate recently as a presenter at the Rhode Island Spring Education Conference of the Greater New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. My topic was entitled Adapting: Financial Planning for a Life with MS. You can view the slides from my presentation here:
The conference included valuable information for those with MS and their caregivers, including nutrition and MS; preparing for MS doctor visits; managing fatigue and bladder/bowel symptoms related to MS; and moving forward after an MS diagnosis.
Particular thanks and kudos to Meredith Sheehan, Program Manager – Community Programs, and her staff for an excellent program.
For more information on local programming for people living with MS, along with the latest MS research findings, first-person stories, advocacy updates, upcoming events, and fundraisers, you can subscribe to the MSConnection quarterly newsletter.
Comments Off on Estate and Medicaid Planning for Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease: Slides from a Presentation at the Caregiver’s Journey Conference
Last week, the Rhode Island’s Alzheimer’s Association did another terrific job with its annual Caregiver’s Journey Conference, a day-long conference for Alzheimer’s caregivers and care professionals. I was privileged to present on the topic of “Estate and Medicaid Planning for Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease”.
I’m posting the slides from my presentation here. Whether or not you attended the program, if you have questions about financial or legal planning for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer’s, please feel free to contact me.
Comments Off on President Obama to take on “trust-fund loophole”
In his State of the Union address, President Obama will, according to a report in the New York Times, propose what his advisors are calling the “trust-fund loophole”, in order to help finance tax cuts for the middle class.
Very interesting. My practice does not involve “trust fund babies” but rather the same middle-class people the President is seeking to benefit. And it is often middle-class people who are the direct beneficiaries of this “trust-fund loophole”.
Let’s first look at what this “loophole” is and and how it works. Suppose a parent gave an adult child the home which the parent purchased in the 1960s for $10,000. Further suppose that when that parent dies that same house is worth $150,000.
When the adult child sells the parent’s home, she will realize capital gain in the amount of $140,000. This amount is the difference between the price at which she sells it – $150,000 – and the parent’s “tax basis” of $10,000. Because the parent gave the property outright during the parent’s life, the adult child received this “carry-over basis” of $10,000.
Now imagine same parent, adult child and house in a different example. Instead of giving the property to the adult child outright during the parent’s lifetime, the parent instead gives the property to the adult child following the parent’s death through a will, trust, life estate deed or other device through which the parent retained certain rights over the house. In that case, the child would receive a “stepped –up basis”–meaning a cost basis equal to the value of the house at the time of the parent’s death.
So we have a very different result. In this case the child’s gain on the sale of the property would be equal to the $150,000 sales price, minus the $150,000 “stepped-up basis” or zero. Zero as in zero capital gains tax to the adult child. Versus $140,000 in capital gains tax in the “carry-over basis” example.
This is the “trust fund loophole” that President Obama seeks to close. The New York Times story quotes administration officials as stating that the tax “would fall almost entirely on the top 1 percent of taxpayers” and “would apply to capital gains of $200,000 or more per couple”.
We’ll see. In the meantime, it’s interesting to see how the term “loophole” can mean different things to different people.
Many elderly (as well as non-elderly) clients have brokerage accounts which include mutual funds. Many of my clients who have these funds (like perhaps the most of the rest of us) may do nothing more than open the monthly statement from the brokerage firm and glance at the results. Though there are exceptions, most clients whom I have encountered are not active traders of these mutual funds.
Nevertheless, as Jason Zweig points out in a recent Wall Street Journal article, some of those people will be receiving IRS Form 1099s later this month showing capital gains distributions from the mutual fund which they held. How can this be when the investor did not sell any portion of the fund during the year?
The answer is that is while the account holderhimself may not have sold any portion of his fund, the manager of the mutual fund did. For example, managers of mutual funds who invest in stocks may have concluded that, as a result of the gains in the stock market in 2014, it was a good time to sell certain individual stocks within the mutual fund. Because the stock was purchased by the manager at a lower price than at which it was sold–generally a good thing–this will result in capital gains to the fund. And as Jason Zweig points out:
“Mutual funds are generally required by tax law to pay out all profits they realize on the sale of their holdings. An investor outside a retirement account is typically liable for taxes on any gains the fund distributed during the tax year – even if he or she never sold a share of the fund.”
The last part – outside of a retirement fund – means outside of a so-called qualified retirement account such as an IRA, 401k or other tax-deferred account. Investors in these types of accounts will generally not be liable for the capital gains of the fund in the year in which they were incurred.
For those holding mutual funds outside of these tax-deferred accounts, however, the end of January may contain in the mail a notice that such gains were incurred and need to be accounted for in determining potential 2014 income tax liability.
Comments Off on Announcing the Long Term Care Planning Blog
Counseling clients facing the prospect of $10,000 per month nursing home costs and other costs of long term care is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the practice of Elder Law. For in addition to knowing substantive law in areas ranging from public benefits to tax planning, the Elder Law practitioner must be aware of community resources such as geriatric care managers, client-centered financial advisors, and excellent providers of long term care services.
That is why I am delighted to announce the launch of a new blog devoted to long term care planning, The Long Term Care Planning Blog is hosted on the Law Professor Blogs Network. As an adjunct law professor at Roger Williams University Law School and a certified elder law attorney (CELA) I will be serving as the blog’s editor. The best part is that nationally known practitioners and other professionals whom I am known or admired for decades have agree to serve as contributing editors, including:
Maryland elder law and special needs attorney Morris Klein, CELA
We look forward to covering many more issues related to long term care planning over the coming weeks and months, and invite you to leave feedback and questions using the blog’s comment system, or directly to me or any of our authors via email, which you will find beside our pictures at the bottom of the blog homepage.
You can also sign up to receive new blog posts by email by clicking on “Subscribe” at the top of the blog homepage.
Comments Off on Hospice Care, Funeral Planning, and Learning from Others
I was privileged to participate recently in a program entitled Planning for the Future: Stewardship, Finances, and End-of-Life Decisions sponsored by St. David’s on-the-Hill in Cranston. The program, moderated by St. David’s pastor, Father Peter Lane, was a full afternoon of programming, the final session of which I co-presented with Donna Palumbo and Mary Biello of the VNA of Rhode Island and Craig W. Carpenter of Carpenter-Jencks Funeral Home.
In his remarks, Craig Carpenter noted that Father Lane and the vestry at St. David’s performed a substantial service to its congregation and to the community (to whom the program was also open) by discussing topics which, in Craig’s apt term, take courage for people to discuss. In my presentation, I provided an overview of advanced directives and particularly the importance of having in place durable powers of attorney for healthcare. I stressed the equal importance of selecting the correct agent and successor agent to act as decision-makers in the event one is unable to make healthcare decisions due to incapacity.
I am always delighted to meet people and share information at gatherings such as this. With the St. David’s on-the-Hill program, I also had the added bonus of learning more about two topics of importance to my clients—hospice care and funeral planning—from highly experienced experts.
Donna and Mary, for example, pointed out that much hospice care is delivered in the home. This is in contrast to the perception which many people have who may be familiar with hospice care which a loved one or friend experienced by the extraordinary professionals at the Philip Hulitar Inpatient Center.
Donna and Mary also pointed out a result of hospice care which I have seen with my clients on a number of occasions. That is, when provided with hospice care at home or in a nursing home, the patient’s condition can improve to a point at which he or she is no longer qualifies for hospice care. This, of course, does not mean that the patient is “cured” of the condition that qualified him or her from hospice care initially. Rather, the intervention of the additional care has prolonged the length and most importantly the quality of the patient’s life. More about the services which Donna, Mary and their team at the VNA offer in hospice and palliative care can be found at www.hospicevnari.org.
As to Craig Carpenter’s portion of the program, if you don’t think that hearing about funeral planning and what occurs at funerals is a riveting topic, you haven’t heard Craig speak. Craig, for example, related the story of discussing with his own father—himself a funeral planner for over a half-century—his father’s desires for his own funeral. It was fascinating to hear Craig talk about assumptions that he had understandably made about certain things his father would want which proved to be incorrect.
Craig’s point was that planning in advance removes those uncertainties (to say nothing of potential conflicts among family members) and makes the entire process what it should be – i.e. in keeping with the desires of the individual who has passed away.
Congratulations to Father Lane and the vestry of St David’s on-the-Hill for a terrific program.
Comments Off on Legal and Financial Considerations of Alzheimer’s Disease – Presentation Slides from the Getting Started Education Series
It’s my privilege to be a regular presenter for the Alzheimer’s Association’s Getting Started education series, a set of free workshops held regularly throughout Rhode Island. Over the years I’ve presented Part 3, “Legal and Financial Considerations of Alzheimer’s Disease“, several times, and I thought readers might find my slides useful.
The presentation slides are embedded below. If you have more specific questions about financial or legal planning for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer’s, or are in need of legal help, please don’t hesitate to contact our offices.
Comments Off on ALS Research Symposium – Presentation on Estate Planning & Public Benefits for Individuals with ALS
Last Sunday, October 19th I was pleased to present at the ALS Research Symposium of the ALS Association, Rhode Island Chapter. The topic of this presentation was Estate Planning & Public Benefits for Individuals with ALS.
As promised on that day, I am now sharing my presentation slides (embedded below). If you have more specific questions on the issues discussed, or are in need of legal help, please don’t hesitate to contact our offices.
Comments Off on Providence Retired Teachers Association Presentation
On October 15th I was privileged to present to a meeting of Providence Retired Teachers Association on the topic of Estate and Medicaid Planning. As Tony Mancini, the long-time President of the Association noted in his introduction, this was my fifth appearance before the PRTA, the first of which was in 2003. As promised during the event, I am now posting a copy of my presentation slides (below).
If you have more specific questions, or are in need of legal help, please don’t hesitate to contact our offices.
