When an unexpected inheritance or lawsuit proceeds are received by a person with disabilities who is on SSI-disability or SSI-elder benefits, the event calls for some special needs planning to continue the SSI monthly checks and Florida Medicaid without going over the $2,000 resource limit. Many think the best or only answer may be an
Assets do not disqualify households from Section 8. However, HUD uses the standard increase in asset value to calculate income. Annual income, per HUD, can affect the amount of one’s housing voucher.
Continue Reading Will a Special Needs Trust Impact Your Section 8 Voucher?
Congratulations and a big thank you to our Florida Congressmen, Ander Crenshaw and Kendrick Meek, who have introduced legislation to allow families to plan for their loved ones with some significant tax saings. Information on the bill follows. To see the bill in its entirety, click on H.R. 1205.
Disability Savings Accounts
The bipartisan Achieving
The Social Security Administration published new POMS, the staff operating manual, on Special Needs Trusts. As Chair fo the Special Needs Trust Committee of the Florida Bar’s Elder Law Section, I have set a meeting to review the new POMS in detail for March 19th, in Tampa.
Here’s a "CLEAN COPY" of the new 2009
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has provided attorneys and the general public with very useful information on their analysis of Special Needs Trusts – are you eligible or ineligible if you have such a trust. There are a lot of ways that attorneys can inadvertently cause a Special Needs Trust to be found in violation
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
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
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
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
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