JANUARY 16, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 3
Let’s say you have a child with “special needs,” or a sister, brother, mother or other family member. You have not created a special needs trust as part of your own estate plan. Why not?
We know why not. We have heard pretty much all the explanations and excuses. Here are a few, and some thoughts we would like you to consider:
I don’t have enough money to need a special needs trust. Really? You don’t have $2,000? Because that’s all you have to leave to your child outside a special needs trust to mess with their SSI and Medicaid eligibility.
I can’t afford to pay for the special needs trust. We apologize that it can be expensive to get good legal help. But the cost of preparing a special needs trust for your child is likely to be way, way less than the cost of providing a couple month’s worth of care. That is what is likely to happen if you die without having created a special needs trust, since it will take several months of legal maneuvering to get an alternative plan in place. Even if there is no loss of benefits, the cost of fixing the problem after your death will be several times that of getting a good plan in place now.
I’ve already named my child as beneficiary on my life insurance/retirement account/annuity. Ah, yes — our favorite alternative to good planning. If your child is named directly as beneficiary, you may have avoided probate but complicated the eligibility picture. Their loss of benefits will occur immediately on your death, rather than waiting the month or two it would have taken to get the probate process underway. This just might be the worst plan of all.
It’ll all be found money to my kids. I’ll let them take care of it if I die. We have bad news for you: “if” is not the right word here. That aside, you should understand that a failure to plan means you are stuck with what’s called the law of “intestate succession.” That means (in Arizona — if you are not in Arizona you might want to look up your state’s law) that if you die without completing your estate plan, your spouse gets everything unless you have children who are not also your spouse’s children. If you are single, your kids get everything equally. If your child on public benefits gets an equal share of your estate, we will probably need to either (a) spend it all quickly or (b) put it into a “self-settled” special needs trust. That means more restrictions on what it can be used for, and a mandatory provision that the trust pays back their Medicaid costs when they die. All their Medicaid costs. Including anything Medicaid has provided before your death. Wouldn’t you like to avoid that result? It’s simple: just see us (or your lawyer if that’s not us) about a “third-party” special needs trust. The rules are so much more flexible if you plan in advance.
My child gets Social Security Disability (or Dependent Adult Child) Benefits and Medicare. Good argument. Because those programs are not sensitive to assets or income, your child might not need a special needs trust as much as a child who received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid (or AHCCCS or ALTCS, in Arizona). But keep these three things in mind:
Even someone who gets most of their benefits from SSD and Medicare might qualify for some Medicaid benefits, like premium assistance and subsidies for deductibles and co-payments. Failure to set up a special needs trust might affect them, even if not as much as another person who receives, say, SSI and Medicaid.
Even someone receiving Medicare will have some effect from having a higher income. Premium payments are already sensitive to income, and future changes in both Medicare and Social Security might result in reduced benefits for someone who has assets or income outside a special needs trust.
If your child has a disability, it might be that a trust is needed in order to provide management of the inheritance you leave them. If they are unable to manage money themselves the alternative is a court-controlled conservatorship (or, in some states, guardianship). That can be expensive and constraining.
I’m young. We agree. And we agree that it’s not too likely that you will die in the next, say, five years (that’s about the useful life of your estate plan, though your special needs trust will probably be fine for longer than that). But “not too likely” is not the same as “it can’t happen.” You cut down your salt and calories because your doctor told you it’d be a good idea — even though your high blood pressure isn’t too likely to kill you in the next five years, either. We’re here to tell you that it’s time to address the need for a special needs trust.
I’m going to disinherit my child who receives public benefits and leave everything to his older brother. That will probably work. “Probably” is the key word here. Is his older brother married? Does he drive a car? Is he independently wealthy? These questions are important because leaving everything to your older child means you are subjecting the entire inheritance to his spouse, creditors, and whims. And have you thought out what will happen if he dies before his brother, leaving your entire inheritance to his wife or kids? Will they feel the same obligation to take care of your vulnerable child that he does?
I’ll get to it. Soon. OK — when?
I don’t like lawyers. We do understand this objection. Some days we’re not too fond of them, either. But they are in a long list of people we’d rather not have to deal with but do: doctors, auto mechanics, veternarians, pest control people, parking monitors. Some days we think the only other human being we really like is our barista. We understand, though, that if we avoid our doctor when we are sick the result will not be positive. Same for the auto mechanic when our car needs attention. Also for the vet and all the rest. In fact, the only one we probably could avoid altogether is the barista, and we refuse to stay away on principle.
Seriously — lawyers are like other professionals. We listen to your needs, desires and information, and we give you our best advice about what you should do (and how we can help). Most of us really like people. In fact, all of us at Fleming & Curti, PLC, really like people — it’s a job requirement. We want to help, and we have some specialized expertise that we can use to assist you. Give us a chance to show you that is true.
JUNE 6, 2011 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 20 Last week we answered a pair of questions from our readers and solicited others. Almost immediately we received an excellent question:
What are the factors you look at to determine if a client is best served w/ a will and durable power of attorney or a living trust? In other words, what are the key factors that would lead you to recommend a living trust?
Let us start with a quick disclaimer: the answer to this question is significantly different from state to state. What is true in Arizona may not be the same in other states — and some states will be wildly different. Even for lawyers in the same state there is significant difference of opinion; we are fond of saying that if you ask ten lawyers for their opinions you are bound to get at least fifteen strongly-held, well-reasoned views. Disclaimers aside, what follows is our take on the question.
We think most people do estate planning for one or more of these four reasons:
To minimize taxes. Usually, but not always, that means estate taxes.
To avoid probate, or (more broadly) to simplify matters for their heirs or successors.
To control the way their assets are used after their death.
To make it easier for someone to handle their affairs in the event of their own incapacity or disability.
Which does better at each of those tasks, a will and powers of attorney or a revocable living trust? In almost every case the trust will handle each of those tasks better than a will and powers of attorney. But that is not really the right way to address the question. Since trusts are somewhat more expensive to prepare (assume your lawyer will charge from three to ten times as much for preparation and “funding” of a trust as for a will and powers of attorney) and involve some extra effort, the analysis really becomes one of cost vs. benefit. Will the extra expense and effort of creating a living trust generate enough savings of time or money for heirs that it will turn out to be the right choice?
For most people, the answer is unclear. There are a handful of our clients for whom the trust is unquestionably the right technique, and another handful for whom the trust is not harmful but simply too much legal help for a problem that doesn’t exist. But most of our clients fit into the large middle ground — it would not be foolish of them to opt for a living trust, and it would not be foolish of them to avoid the expense and trouble now and let their heirs deal with it later.
So how do those four estate planning goals relate to the will vs. living trust question? Here’s what we think:
Taxes. Few people need to worry very much about estate taxes these days. With a federal exemption set at $5 million, and no Arizona state estate tax at all, only a tiny fraction of clients have estates large enough to make their decisions on the basis of tax effect.
It is true that the federal estate tax is scheduled to return to the $1 million level in 2013. It is also true that the Arizona legislature could decide to reimpose an estate tax (though most people think that highly unlikely). But for most people, even a taxation level set at $1 million would not make any difference in their planning.
But that’s not the end of the inquiry about taxes. Even if your estate is large enough for you to worry about estate taxation, there is no inherent tax benefit in living trusts. There used to be a way for married couples to lower their combined estate tax bill if their total estate was over the taxation level, but even that has changed (though of course it might change back in 2013). Bottom line: estate tax concerns simply do not drive the trust vs. will question in 2011 the way they did in, say, 1999. And if you are unmarried, or if you are married and your combined estate is less than about $1 million, you simply do not care about estate tax considerations.
Probate avoidance. Arizona’s probate process is not nearly as complicated as its reputation would suggest. It is also not nearly as expensive. Have you read stories about estates that have gone entirely to the lawyers because of a messed-up probate system? Yes, it does happen — but not really because of the system so much as because of family disputes over the validity of documents (including, increasingly, living trusts).
That said, most people will say that even a modest probate cost and time spent in lawyers’ offices would be something worth avoiding. What you need is a solid estimate of what it would cost to probate your estate if you relied on a will instead of a living trust, so that you can compare that cost to the cost of opting for a living trust. It is too hard to generalize about either expense, but we are prepared to go this far: in Arizona, the cost of preparing a living trust (and “funding” it — transferring all your assets into the trust’s name) will almost always be less than the cost of probating your estate later. But not necessarily by much.
There are some other points to be made here. If you own real estate in more than one state, your will must be probated in each of those states (unless you create a living trust or other probate-avoidance mechanism for some or all of those properties). That can drive the expense up considerably, and certainly complicates things for your family. On the other hand, if you have less than $50,000 worth of personal property and no real estate at the time of your death, no probate proceeding is likely to be needed anyway, since there is a “small estates” affidavit mechanism to avoid the probate process.
In general terms, larger estates tend to be more complicated to administer. More complex estates are better candidates for a living trust. So if you are wealthy, probate avoidance is more likely to be a concern for you — and especially if you have unusual assets, or real estate in multiple states, or other uncommon kinds of property issues.
One special consideration here: if you are married, you are probably comfortable putting most or all of your assets in “joint tenancy with right of survivorship” or designating your spouse as beneficiary. You might not feel the same way if you are single; it is not quite as easy (or advisable) to put your children or other beneficiaries on your bank and stock accounts as joint owners. So single people are usually better candidates for living trusts as a means of avoiding probate.
Control. We use the word advisedly. That’s what you might want to do with your funds, even after your death. Are you in a second marriage, with children from the first marriage, and a desire to provide for your spouse but ultimately pass most of your estate to those children? Maybe you have a spendthrift son (or a son who has married a spendthrift). Perhaps your daughter is disabled, and receiving government benefits she would lose if you left her an inheritance outright. Or maybe you want your money to be a retirement fund for your children, or to encourage your grandchildren to get an education, or some other laudable goal you are trying to achieve.
How can you address all of those issues? By putting your money in trust, with a trustee who has been instructed on how you want the money to be used.
You don’t have to create a living trust to put your money in trust. Instead you can create a trust in your will — what we lawyers call a “testamentary” trust. But it will cost you more, and the difference between the cost of a will (with your testamentary trust) and a living trust will shrink. So if you need (or just want) to control the uses of your funds after your death, you will be a better candidate for a living trust.
Your own incapacity. This is why you should sign a power of attorney. It is simultaneously one of the most important documents in your estate plan, and the single most dangerous one. But the cost of going through the courts (in a probate-like proceeding called a conservatorship) is almost always high and the invasion of privacy significant.
There are some times when a power of attorney just won’t solve the problem, though. Plus it is hard to predict when those times arise. Banks, title companies, the federal and state governments — none of them are required to accept the power of attorney. If you sign a living trust and transfer all of your assets to it, though, the problem becomes simpler and narrower: if your successor trustee can show the item the trust calls for (like a letter from your doctor, for instance), then the successor trustee just takes over. There will probably be somewhat fewer problems administering your affairs with a living trust than with a power of attorney.
We don’t want to overstate this benefit, however. It is almost never valuable enough to justify creating a living trust all by itself. As far as we are usually willing to go on this score is to suggest that, if one or more of the other categories make you a good candidate for a living trust, this one might put you over the top.
There’s one more category of living trusty candidates we can suggest: those who are more likely than others to (how can we say this gently?) “use” their estate plans in the next few years. In other words, the older you get the better of a candidate you become for a living trust.
So who should be considering a living trust as part of their estate plan? Look over the explanations above, and you will see that you are a better candidate for a living trust if you:
are older
are not married
are wealthy
have children who are not children of your spouse
have complicated assets, and especially if you
have real estate in more than one state
have beneficiaries with special needs, inability to handle money or other similar considerations
Again, we caution you against putting too much stock in these descriptions or applying them to your situation without good legal counsel. But look over this list of considerations and think about what they say about your estate planning needs. Share them with your own lawyer and ask for a thoughtful, critical evaluation. Your family and heirs will be glad you did.
APRIL 4, 2011 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 12 My son will be 18 in a little more than a year. He is in high school, in the special education program. What do I need to do to prepare for his eighteenth birthday?
Excellent question. Assuming it is limited to legal matters (those are the only ones we’re particularly good with), we have a number of things for you to consider:
Guardianship. You may need to seek a guardianship in order to maintain your ability to make medical decisions for your son. You will undoubtedly begin hearing from all sorts of concerned (and mostly well-informed) people about how difficult and expensive that process is, and how you need to get a head start on it. Relax. The news is mostly good.
Arizona, like a number of other states, gives family members the ability to make medical decisions for an incapacitated relative. Parents have a high priority under Arizona law. Of course, if you are no longer married to your son’s other parent, that can mean a conflict over who will be first. It may be perfectly obvious to you, but the law assumes you and your ex have equal rights until a court decides otherwise — and a childhood custody order does not resolve the question.
Assuming you get along with your ex, or you are still married to your son’s other parent, does that mean no guardianship is necessary? Not exactly. There are some circumstances where it still might be appropriate to seek guardianship; you will want to consult with a lawyer who knows something about guardianship to review the concerns and options.
Some parents go ahead and file for guardianship even if it may not be completely necessary. They reason that they want the security of knowing they have legal authority, and that is not a foolish mistake. Other parents reason that they want to maintain as much autonomy and self-determination for their children as possible, despite whatever limitations they might have. That is also not a foolish point of view. What does that mean? Every family circumstance is a little bit different, and good advice is needed.
If you do decide to file for guardianship, there probably is no rush. The Arizona legislature is right now considering changes that would allow you to file before your son turns 18, but until those changes are final (perhaps by September of this year) you can’t really file until after that anyway. The process will take about six weeks, and probably cost about $1,500 to $2,000 in legal and filing fees. That assumes, of course, that it is clear that your son needs a guardian, and that he doesn’t disagree.
One thing that would help with the decision-making process, and get everything going more quickly: get a letter from your son’s physician that indicates whether the doctor thinks he can make medical and personal decisions on his own. That letter will be necessary for the permanent hearing anyway, and it will help us counsel you on whether and how to proceed.
Child Support. Is there an old child support order requiring your ex to pay you monthly? Arizona permits child support to continue past age 18 if the child is disabled. You need to jump on this issue right away.
One caveat: child support (whether it is paid to you, directly to your son or to someone else on his behalf) will probably keep him from getting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments — unless you plan carefully. This is not a simple issue, and few divorce lawyers have dealt with the kind of planning necessary to keep child support and SSI both coming in. We need to talk about this one at some length.
Social Security. Is your son now receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments? If not, it may be because of your assets and income, which are imputed to him for eligibility purposes. If that is the case, your assets and income will no longer count once he turns 18. If he is “disabled” (and that’s different from “has a disability”) then it would be good to get that established and get SSI benefits flowing immediately.
Promptly after your son’s 18th birthday you should apply for SSI for him. If he gets it, he will automatically qualify for AHCCCS (Arizona’s Medicaid program). That will also help assure that he gets services from the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) if his disability is developmental.
There are a number of things to keep in mind once your son’s SSI eligibility is set:
If he lives with you without paying rent (or paying toward the costs of his food and shelter), his SSI will be reduced by about $250 per moth (the number changes with the maximum SSI benefit rate). If that happens, you might consider charging rent as a way of increasing his benefit — but it won’t change his eligibility for AHCCCS.
In any event, it is important to get his disability established by Social Security before he turns 22. If you do, then he will probably qualify for dependents’ and survivors’ benefits under your Social Security account. That means that when either of his parents retires, his SSI may suddenly switch to Social Security (or a combination of Social Security and SSI) and he will qualify for Medicare coverage instead of (or in addition to) his AHCCCS coverage. Similiarly, upon the death of either parent his benefit will probably bump up again.
If you help your son secure employment, perhaps in a family business or other friendly and unchallenging environment, he may lose his future eligibility for Social Security benefits on your account. That might not be best for him long term. Same result if he marries — it can cut off his future dependents’ or survivors’ benefits.
Graduation. You may want to have your son graduate with his high school class. It is often a matter of pride and self-respect, and friends and family may have encouraged that perspective for years. Unfortunately, graduation might not be best for your son.
Programs offered through the school systems are often more appropriate, more easily available and better staffed than those offered to adult participants in DDD-sponsored programs. Usually students who have been identified as developmentally disabled can stay in high school until age 22; that is often in their best interests. You might talk to lawyers familiar with the local social service scene, and to parents of other children who have been through the graduation decision.
UTMA Accounts. Do you have an old Uniform Transfer to Minors Act account you (or maybe your parents) set up for your son years ago? It’s time to deal with that, too. The good news: you actually still have a couple years. Rather than ending at 18, they mostly end at age 21. But when that day arrives, the UTMA account will keep your son from receiving SSI benefits and maybe even AHCCCS. Let’s get that problem dealt with in advance.
Estate Planning. When your son was still a minor it was important that you sign a will identifying your choice for his guardian if you had died. Thank goodness you are going to make it to his majority — but the problem hasn’t gone away. You still need to do your own estate planning, or to update it if you have already done it.
Have you created a special needs trust to receive any share you intend to leave to him? Do you have life insurance, IRAs or retirement accounts, bank accounts or even real estate listing him as beneficiary? You need to get on this project right away — you are now almost two decades older than you were when you first thought about his future care.
DECEMBER 6, 2010 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 37
A client’s question:
My brother has a special needs trust, and I am the trustee. He lives in his condo and gets services from AHCCCS and ALTCS. Can the trust pay his property taxes?
Interesting question. The answer isn’t as easy or straightforward as it ought to be. Let’s start with the simple (but not completely accurate) answer, and then explain some of the limitations and qualifications.
Unless the trust language prohibits payment of property taxes (and sometimes the trust does prohibit such payments), they can be paid from the trust. There may be consequences he will have to deal with, and there may be some circumstances in which it is not permitted, but generally it can be done.
There are a number of questions that will affect the answer:
Is the trust a “self-settled” or “third-party” trust? In other words, was it set up to handle your brother’s money (perhaps from a personal injury settlement, for instance) or was it created by a family member and funded with their own money? If the former, the rules will probably be somewhat stricter. If the latter, there will be no problem with paying the taxes (again assuming the trust language permits it), though there may be some reduction in public benefits (especially Supplemental Security Income).
Does the trust own the condo? If not, does it belong to your brother, or to some other family member? It may be a little easier to pay the taxes if the trust owns the property. The most difficult problems will arise if title is in a third person’s name, with your brother not owning any interest.
Do other people live with him? If so (at least in Arizona) it may be a little more complicated, though it may not. In some situations the trust may only be able to pay a proportional share of the property taxes. In other words, if he has a roommate it might only be possible to pay half the property tax bill.
Is he on AHCCCS or ALTCS? If the former, the rules are likely to be a little bit easier. If the latter, the payments might be treated more strictly. (If your brother does not live in Arizona, this distinction will not make any sense — AHCCCS and ALTCS are the Arizona programs for Medicaid and the long-term care component of Medicaid, respectively. Other states not only do not use the same acronyms, they also do not necessarily make the same distinctions between programs). If your brother is on ALTCS but receiving most of his services from the mental health or developmental disabilities program, the ultimate answer may be different yet again.
Is he receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments? If so it is probably going to be much easier to pay the property taxes.
You can see that the question is getting more complex as we go along. It is an unfortunate reality of the public benefits arena — the rules are complicated and often draconian.
Let’s assume that we can get past the threshold question, and can determine that it is permissible to pay the property taxes on your brother’s condo. That immediately raises a couple of related questions:
What is the best way to do it? Two payments each year, or one payment? Most people pay their Arizona property taxes in two equal installments. One is due in October and the other in April. There is an alternative, however, and it is usually attractive for special needs trusts: you can make both halves of the tax payment at once, without interest, provided that you do so by December 31. In other words, no payment in October, a full payment in December, and then no payment in April. Why do it this way? Because paying the taxes might reduce your brother’s SSI payment for each month in which a payment is made — so it makes sense to have that only happen once a year.
What about other payments, like the homeowner’s association dues, and the insurance? Those two payments are treated differently than property taxes. First, though, look at the trust document. Does it permit payment of household expenses? If so, then public benefits rules do not prohibit payment of HOA and insurance bills — except that the HOA dues might be a problem to the extent that they include water, garbage pickup or other utilities, and the insurance may be a problem if it is required by a mortgage lender.
What about utilities? Does that mean they can’t be paid? Once again, look first at the trust document. Assuming it permits these payments, you can then consider the public benefits rules. Generally speaking they may allow payment of utilities, but with a reduction in SSI payments. Some payments may be prohibited by ALTCS rules. The utilities that cause particular problems are water, gas, electricity, and garbage pickup. No problem for internet, telephone, newspaper delivery, and cable subscriptions.
What about home improvements and repairs? Generally speaking they are alright — though if there are others living with your brother there may be issues for some kinds of payments. Talk to us about the details (or, if your brother does not live in Arizona, consult with a lawyer familiar with special needs trusts in his state).
Exhausted? So are we. These rules are too complicated and the repercussions to serious — for that we are sorry. We can help navigate them for Arizona benefits recipients.
Where can I get more information? Good question. If you and your brother do not live in Arizona, you might want to talk with an attorney familiar with the area. Start with the Special Needs Alliance — it includes about 120 lawyers across the country, each of whom spends a considerable amount of time on special needs trusts and public benefits issues.
There is also a really good handbook available for trustees of special needs trusts. It is offered by the Special Needs Alliance, and the price is right — it is free and downloadable directly from the SNA website. If you prefer, you can get a beautifully printed version mailed to you. There are also a number of books on the topic — we favor one called “Managing a Special Needs Trust: A Guide for Trustees“.
Good luck. It isn’t always easy to be trustee of a special needs trust, and we appreciate that the challenges are sometimes legal, sometimes medical, sometimes familial.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2010 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 30
This is so confusing to clients, but it needn’t be. The rules are actually simpler than they seem. Stay with us, and we’ll walk you through it.
OK, here’s the set-up: You have three children, one of whom (the youngest) has a disability. We’ve decided to name her Cindy (sorry if we got that part wrong). Your estate plan is to leave everything equally to your three children, but you know that (1) Cindy can’t manage money, and (2) even if she could, leaving her money directly would knock her off of her public benefits. Just to make things more complicated, nearly half of your net worth is held in an IRA.
Before we roll up our sleeves, let us make a few observations about your situation:
If instead of an IRA you have a 401k, a 403b, Keogh or other retirement plan, the rules are pretty much the same. They’re somewhat different if you have a Roth IRA; we may tackle that issue in a future newsletter.
If Cindy’s disability entitles her to public benefits but she is able to manage money just fine then some of the trust issues might be different from what we describe here.
We’ve decided that your estate (your combined estate, if you are married) is just under the estate tax limits, whatever they might be. That’s so we don’t have to complicate this explanation with an estate tax element. But the truth is, that wouldn’t complicate things all that much — we just don’t want to have to throw those oranges into our apple basket. Not today, anyway.
Ready? Here we go. We’ll start by asking you some questions:
First question: What benefits does Cindy get? Is she on Supplemental Security Income (SSI)? Does she also get Social Security benefits, either on her own work history or on yours? Is she receiving Medicare coverage? How about Medicaid (or, in Arizona, AHCCCS)? Does she also get a housing subsidy, benefits through the Division of Developmental Disabilities, or therapy and care from the school district?
This question is important, because first we need to figure out whether her benefits will be affected by any trust you might set up for her. Here’s a surprise: it’s not enough to figure out what benefits she is on now, particularly if she was disabled before age 22. She might be eligible to receive benefits on your work history (or your spouse’s), and those benefits could go up when you retire and again when you die. Since your estate plan is all about what happens to your money when you die, the benefits Cindy gets then will be more important than the benefits she receives now.
Second question: How important is it to you to give your children the chance to “stretch-out” your IRA? We’re sorry — we didn’t explain what that means.
You already know that you have to withdraw money at a set pace, calculated based on your life expectancy, once you reach age 71 (we know — it’s really 70.5; it’s actually the year after you turn 70.5, so let’s just call it 71, okay?). You probably also realize that your beneficiaries get to use their own life expectancies after they inherit your IRA. Or at least they do most of the time.
If that is important to you, your beneficiary designation should make it easy for your children to use the longest stretch-out period possible. Since they are probably all different ages that means there is a benefit — maybe a slight one, but a benefit — to the youngest children to be able to use their own age rather than being stuck with an older sibling’s age.
Note: this assumes your children share your interest in stretching out the IRA withdrawals. Take the simple case, with Cindy not involved: if you make the other two children (let’s call them Amelia and Barbara) beneficiaries of the IRA, Barbara (the younger) will be able to take a little less out each year than Amelia is required to do. But if either of them decides to just withdraw all the money and use it for an extended European vacation, then they can choose to make a decision that is not tax-wise. If you want to prevent them from doing that, you have raised the complication factor — but it can be done. We’re just not going to try to explain it here. But we do — here.
Third question: Do you want to try to give Cindy some non-IRA assets rather than an interest in the IRA, just to make this simple? Let’s say you left your IRA to Amelia and Barbara, and increased Cindy’s share of the non-IRA assets to make the shares equal. Would that work?
Well, yes — but it’s not quite that easy. Say you leave $100,000 in an IRA to Amelia — is that worth $100,000 to her? No, because she will have to pay taxes on it when she takes it out. How much? It depends on her state, her marginal tax rate and how long she leaves it in the IRA, so it’s very hard to figure out the “real” value to Amelia. Plus we know that the real value of the same amount of IRA will be different for Barbara, making the calculation that much more difficult.
Maybe we can use a rule of thumb, though. Let’s guess that Amelia and Barbara will delay taking out their inherited IRA money as long as possible, and that when they do they’ll both be retired and not making a lot of income. Perhaps the “real” value (to them) of your IRA will be 65% to 80% of its balance when you die. Is that close enough for you to figure out what would be “fair” if you gave Cindy more cash and less IRA? We can’t tell you — this one is a judgment call for you.
Fourth question: Who will manage Cindy’s money after your death? Amelia, the banker (and classic first-born)? Barbara, who has some financial challenges of her own but has always been close to Cindy, and still lives in the same community with her? Your local bank? A family friend, or a professional you have worked with?
Enough questions for a moment. Let us tell you what we think, based on your answers.
First, you can create a trust and name it as beneficiary of your IRA. Don’t listen to your banker or your accountant if they tell you that you can not do that — they are reciting old rules that no longer apply.
But if you do name a trust as beneficiary, you are likely to force everyone to use a shorter stretch-out date — probably all three daughters will be stuck with Amelia’s life expectancy. If there are only a few years’ difference between the girls, that may not be a big deal. If this issue is important, then we probably can work around it — we can name Amelia and Barbara as beneficiaries directly, and a stand-alone “special needs” trust for Cindy’s benefit to receive her share of the IRA. If we do that, though, you have to make us a promise: you can’t let anyone else tell you to change your beneficiary designations after we get them set up. At least you have to promise not to make any changes until after you have met with us and gone back over the beneficiary form.
In fact, you will find that you have to help educate lots of folks about IRA beneficiary designations. Over time you will be told that you have a mistake in your designation, that you have unnecessarily caused tax increases for your daughters, that your lawyer obviously doesn’t know how to do this. We do, and we can help you respond to those bankers, accountants and others who tell you that you need to make changes. Keep us in the loop, please.
We also need to make sure you realize Cindy’s share can’t go to charity after her death. None of it. Even though the non-profit which provides a sheltered workshop for her would be the logical beneficiary of a share of “her” IRA portion, it mucks everything else up.
So how do we get Cindy’s portion of the IRA — and for that matter the rest of her inheritance — set up to benefit her without knocking her off of her SSI, Medicaid, AHCCCS and other government benefits? That’s what a special needs trust is all about.
We have important advice for you: Be careful as you look for information about special needs trusts, though: much of what you read will be about the rules (and limitations) on so-called “self-settled” special needs trusts, and Cindy’s trust will not be one of those. You will be establishing a “third-party” special needs trust, and the rules will be much different, and much more liberal. You can leave IRA and non-IRA assets in a special needs trust for Cindy’s benefit, and you will actually improve the quality of her life without jeopardizing the programs and benefits she receives.
We hope this helps sort through some of the finer points of IRA beneficiary designations. If you want more, we can recommend a really thorough article by our friend Ed Wilcenski, a New York lawyer. He wrote for Forbes.com, and he’s a smart guy who writes well.
Incidentally, we’d love to hear from you. Maybe you have a question about IRAs and special needs trusts, or you just want to tell us whether this helped you out. Maybe you want to quibble with some of our advice. We love to hear from readers.
We will not, however, undertake to represent you based on a simple e-mail or internet inquiry — we need much more information (starting with where you live — we don’t practice outside Arizona) before undertaking a lawyer/client relationship. We won’t be able to answer your specific questions about your own legal situation, either. What good are we, then? Well, we’ll try to demystify some of the general rules and answer general questions about these topics. Contact us if you’d like us to try, or simply Leave a Reply below. We’ll read your comments and let you know, even if we can’t help you with individual legal problems.
AUGUST 23, 2010 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 27
It really is unfortunate that we didn’t see this problem coming. Those of us who pioneered special needs trust planning back in the 1980s should have realized that we were setting up everyone (including ourselves) for confusion. We should have just given the two main kinds of special needs trusts different names. But we didn’t, and now we have to keep explaining.
There are two different kinds of special needs trusts, and the treatment and effect of any given trust will be very different depending on which kind of trust is involved in each case. Even that statement is misleading: there are actually about six or seven (depending on your definitions) kinds of special needs trusts — but they generally fall into one of two categories. Most (but not all) practitioners use the same language to describe the distinction: a given special needs trust is either a “self-settled” or a “third-party” trust.
Why is the distinction important? Because the rules surrounding the two kinds of trusts are very different. For example, a “self-settled” special needs trust:
Must include a provision repaying the state Medicaid agency for the cost of Title XIX (Medicaid) benefits received by the beneficiary upon the death of the beneficiary.
May have significant limitations on the kinds of payments the trustee can make; these limitations will vary significantly from state to state.
Will likely require some kind of annual accounting to the state Medicaid agency of trust expenditures.
May, if the rules are not followed precisely, result in the beneficiary being deemed to have access to trust assets and/or income, and thereby cost the beneficiary his or her Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid eligibility.
Will be taxed as if its contents still belonged to the beneficiary — in other words, as what the tax law calls a “grantor” trust.
By contrast, a “third-party” special needs trust usually:
May pay for food and shelter for the beneficiary — though such expenditures may result in a reduction in the beneficiary’s Supplemental Security Income payments for one or more months.
Can be distributed to other family members, or even charities, upon the death of the primary beneficiary.
May be terminated if the beneficiary improves and no longer requires Supplemental Security Income payments or Medicaid eligibility — with the remaining balance being distributed to the beneficiary.
Will not have to account (or at least not have to account so closely) to the state Medicaid agency in order to keep the beneficiary eligible.
Will be taxed on its own, and at a higher rate than a self-settled trust — though sometimes it will be taxed to the original grantor, and sometimes it will be entitled to slightly favorable treatment as a “Qualified Disability” trust (what is sometimes called a QDisT).
So what is the difference? It is actually easy to distinguish the two kinds of trusts, though even the names can make it seem more complicated. A self-settled trust is established with money or property that once belonged to the beneficiary. That might include a personal injury settlement, an inheritance, or just accumulated wealth. If the beneficiary had the legal right to the unrestrained use of the money — directly or though a conservator (or guardian of the estate) — then the trust is probably a self-settled trust.
It may be clearer to describe a third-party trust. If the money belonged to someone else, and that person established the trust for the benefit of the person with a disability, then the trust will be a third-party trust. Of course, it also has to qualify as a special needs trust; not all third-party trusts include language that is sufficient to gain such treatment (and there is a little variation by state in this regard, too).
So an inheritance might be a third-party special needs trust — if the person leaving the inheritance set it up in an appropriate manner. If not, and the inheritance was left outright to the beneficiary, then the trust set up by a court, conservator (or guardian of the estate) or family member will probably be a self-settled trust.
That leads to an important point: if the trust is established by a court, by a conservator or guardian, or even by the defendant in a personal injury action, it is still a self-settled trust for Social Security and Medicaid purposes. Each of those entities is acting on behalf of the beneficiary, and so their actions are interpreted as if the beneficiary himself (or herself) established the trust.
Since the rules governing these two kinds of trusts are so different, why didn’t we just use different names for them to start with? Good question. Some did: in some states and laws offices, self-settled special needs trusts are called “supplemental benefits” trusts. Unfortunately, the idea didn’t catch on, and sometimes the same term is used to describe third-party trusts instead. Oops.
We collectively apologize for the confusion. In the meantime, note that the literature about special needs trusts sometimes assumes that you know which kind is being described and discussed, and sometimes even mixes up the two types without clearly distinguishing. Pay close attention to anything you read about special needs trusts to make sure you’re getting the right information.
Want to know more? You might want to sign up for our upcoming “Special Needs Trust School” program. We are offering our next session (to live attendees only) on September 15, 2010. You can call Yvette at our offices (520-622-0400) to reserve a seat.
Tax time is upon us yet again — just like last year and the year before. Funny how it rolls around every twelve months. OK — “funny” might not be the best word.
There is a certain irony in describing the tax deductions available to families raising or caring for a child with special needs. What families usually need is help (both financial and otherwise), and tax deductions may not provide much help for the family with income limited by the need to provide care for their child. Still, some deductions may be useful and many often go unclaimed; perhaps we can alert you to one or more you should consider while preparing or filing your own tax returns.
Claiming a dependent. Are you providing more than half the financial support for a person with a disability? You may be able to claim them as a dependent on your tax return. Of course, that means no one else can claim them as a dependent — including themselves.
Medical deductions. Remember that medical deductions are only useful on your federal income tax return to the extent that they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Let’s use real numbers: if your income is about the national median this year, you will report something like $45,000 to $50,000 of income. In that case the first $3,500 (or so) of medical expenses you incur will not affect your tax return at all.
With that in mind, there are still expenses you should track. You might find that the 7.5% limit is easier to reach than you thought. You might also live in a state that does not apply the limitation (Arizona, for instance), so that medical expenses should be tracked.
What medical deductions most often get overlooked? Expenses for special schools might be deductible as a medical expense — if a medical professional has signed a recommendation. Tutoring, specialized books and software, evaluations and transportation might also be includible. Sometimes even special summer programs, residential schools — even disability-focused conferences — may be deductible as a medical expense.
Child and Dependent Care Credit. This one is not a deduction, but a credit — and that makes it valuable even for those who might not have enough medical expenses to deduct them. The credit is available to parents who have to pay caretakers in order to work (and earn income). The amount of the credit: up to 35% of the care costs incurred. See IRS Publication 503 for more information.
There are also other deductions and credits you might be overlooking. We were recently interviewed for a television report that indicated up to 30% of families with special needs children may failed to claim tax benefits due to them.
