Although it is like filling out a tax return, it is possible to accurately calculate the amount of parents’ income that will be deemed against a disabled minor child’s SSI and Medicaid eligibility.  The attached ARTICLE ON SSI DEEMING CALCULATIONS explains how.

The FORMS FOR CALCULATING PARENT TO CHILD, and FORMS FOR CALCULATING SPOUSE-TO-SPOUSE deeming are included, along with an EXAMPLE OF CALCULATED DEEMING FOR A CHILD from the article.

Our firm does SSI deeming calculations for individuals and for bank trust officers upon request.

Attached is a TABLE OF SSI DEEMING BREAKEVEN POINTS, that is, how much income a parent of a minor child, a spouse, or a sponsor of an alien, could earn and still have the disabled SSI child, spouse, or alien be eligible for at least $1 of SSI benefits.  Receiving at least $1 of SSI is important in Florida, and 31 other States, since receipt of any amount of SSI benefits triggers full eligibility for Florida Medicaid pursuant to Florida Statute, Section 409.903(2) and SEction 1634 of the federal Social Security Act.

Be careful when using this chart.  Note the limitations on when it cannot be used.  The only way to accurately determine the amount of parents’ income, for example, that will cause the loss of SSI benefits is to do a step-by-step calculation using the fairly complicated SSI income rules.  We will post shortly a paper that describes, in detail, with forms, how to do that calculation.  Also note, our firm does these calculations for clients and for bank trust officers who are administrators of Special Needs Trusts.

Call us if you want help.

We are pleased to announce that Lillesand and Wolasky, P.L., has opened a new office in Gainesville, Florida to provide legal services to North Florida.  The practice is limited to Special Needs Trust, SSI disability and Social Security Disability Insurance Benefit Claims, and related Medicaid and Medicare issues.

Contact us at (352) 376-6666.

We are located in the Haile Village Center, SunTrust Bank Building, Second Floor, 5303 S.W. 91st Drive, Gainesville, Florida 32608.

We look forward to assisting other attorneys and clients from our new North Florida location.

With millions upon millions of baby boomers about to retire, the Social Security Administration has created an online  “retirement benefits estimator” that is a substantial improvement over the previous Internet version. Go to  www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.

There are a number of things that are significant improvements.  Unlike previous versions, this one uses your actual Social Security taxes paid over your lifetime, to calculate the benefit for you — exactly.  Secondly, it provides an opportunity to ask for different scenarios – such as, what if I retire early at age 62, or age 64, versus my full retirement age of 66.  Finally, it is FAST!  Two simple pages of input items (name, SSN, date of birth, mother’s maiden name), and you’ll instantly have the amount of your Social Security check.

With over 1 million people visiting Social Security local offices each week, anything that will cut down on unnecessary trips to SSA will benefit both individuals who need the information as well as the number of SSA employees needed to respond to requests for information.

The new 2008 Deeming Chart should be used by banks and other Special Needs Trust Administrators judiciously.  Pay particular attention to the qualifications indicating when the trust may not be used, which appear at the end of the chart.  Also be aware that these numbers increase annually, but a slight amount, due to changes in the SSI Federal Benefit Rate.

However, the chart is definitely useful to indicate approximately how much a parent could be paid, for example, for disabled child caretaking, to stay within the deemed amount that will not eliminate a child’s SSI disability benefits.  In 31 U.S. states and jurisdictions, receipt fo $1 of SSI triggers automatic eligibility for state Medicaid benefits.

The organizers of the Florida State Guardianship Annual Convention asked me to prepare some comments on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – It Just Keeps Changing.  The ten page paper highlights changes in how  attorneys and guardians of disabled individuals will have to change the way they interact with SSA, video hearings, “paperless” medical and legal files at SSA, as well as the 2008 changes in Medicare, and changes we are expecting in the SSI POMS that relate to Special Needs Trust administration: new rules on employment by the trustee of parents to care for minor disabled children, support of dependent spouses and minor children using the disabled parent’s trust funds (see our previous post on July 11th), and structured settlement annuity problems, particularly with deeming of healthy parents’ annuities against the disabled child’s continued eligibility for SSI and Medicaid.

If you want more information on guardianship, or the Florida State Guardianship Association and an application for membership, click here.

There are no clear instructions from the Social Security Administration on whether a trustee of a Special Needs Trust can use a disabled person’s d4A Special Needs Trust to support a healthy spouse and dependent children. 

For statutory and policy reasons, we argue, not only can a trustee use a disabled beneficiary’s self-settled SNT funds in the appropriate circumstance to support these dependents, but failure to do so may have criminal consequences. 

See our six-page  Thoughtson the matter, attached, which reference the federal and state statutes that apply to this issue.

An attorney asked us, "How does the Social Security Administration treat Worker’s Compensation benefits for SSI eligibility purposes?"  

WC weekly wage replacement payments.  The SSI financial eligiblity rules require that a claimant have low income and few assets, which they call "resources."  Weekly worker’s comp wage payments are treated as "unearned income" for SSI monthly income eligibility purposes, and except for a $20 general income disregard, the full amount of the worker’s comp payments are subtracted from the potential full SSI benefit of $637.  Thus, an injured worker who receives worker’s comp payments of $657 or more in a month, would not be eligible for SSI for that month.  See the SSI federal income regulations on unearned income.  Whether the income stream from WC payments can be irrevocably assigned to a Special Needs Trust, is a matter of state law that varies from state to state.  The SSI POMS at SI 01120.201.J. do NOT list WC payments as income items that cannot be assigned to a trust.

WC Wash-out Settlements.  Sometimes workers "wash out" the settlement, taking a lump sum and foregoing any additional payments from the worker’s compensation insurance company.  These settlements can range from a few thousand dollars, to hundreds of thousands, depending on the seriousness of the injury.  The SSI rules would treat the lump sum settlement as "income" in the month received, probably knocking out SSI and SSI-related Medicaid eligibility for the month of receipt of the settlement check.  However, what happens next?  Teh retained funds become a resource (asset) that is usually over the $2,000 limit.  If the worker keeps the settlement money, and the amount is over $2,000, SSI eligibility is lost, and SSI-related Medicaid is lost, UNLESS the worker places the funds in a Special Needs Trust.  A trust will solve the problem.

I will be presenting at both the Basics and the Advanced sessions of the Stetson College of Law Program on Special Needs Trusts.  This is the 10th Annual program, and has become "the" national program for basic and advanced continuing legal education on Special Needs Trusts.  If you are a professional in the field, either an attorney who drafts Special Needs Trusts, or a Trust Officer who administers them, this is the best program to attend to stay abreast of developments in SNT law.  Here’s the AGENDA and here’s the REGISTRATION information for the October conference.  See you there!

 

Social Security Region 4   

Good news!  One of the tasks of our Florida Bar Elder Law Section’s Special Needs Committee which I co-chaired this year, was to petition the Social Security Administration to change the Atlanta Regional POMS on Trusts.  Specifically, we wanted recognition that the Doctrine of Worthier Title no longer applied in Florida.  The Atlanta Regional Office of the Social Security Administration publishes the instructions to Florida SSA staff on interpretations of Florida law.

Our petition was adopted, and a new Atlanta Regional POMS styled "SI ATL01120.201 – Trust Property," was published by SSA on the Internet on April 15, 2008.

The Doctrine of Worthier Title had previously made irrevocable trusts into revocable trusts, automatically by operation of law, whenever the trust document failed to name a specific residual beneficiary.  This caught many Florida drafters of Special Needs Trusts by surprise.  For a Special Needs Trust to be valid under federal SSI rules, and thus trigger SSI-related Medicaid in Florida, the trust must be irrevocable.  A previous attempt by our law firm, through litigation in the federal courts, was unsuccessful in persuading the courts that Florida had abandoned the Doctrine through case law. Thus we sought an administrative remedy by petition.

That problem has now been corrected.   Life is good!