Ruder Ware's Elder Law Team Recognizes National Special Needs Law Month - Part 2
A family with a disabled child faces difficult planning challenges. For many years, the most effective estate and financial planning tool for parents of a disabled child was a special needs trust (SNT). This trust type...more
Parents want their children to be taken care of after they die. But children with disabilities have increased financial and care needs, so ensuring their long-term welfare can be tricky. Proper planning by parents is...more
Saving money for a loved one with a disability can be challenging because of the $2,000 resource limit for eligibility for means-tested governmental benefits like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid. In the past,...more
ABLE accounts, new tax-free saving accounts for people with disabilities, hold great promise for special needs planning. But among the many questions surrounding ABLE plans is who can open accounts? Only the person with a...more
For families with disabled loved ones who are potentially eligible for means-tested government benefits such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income, estate planning can be a challenge. One potential tool is to open a...more
In This Issue: - Social Security benefits When is the right time to begin receiving payments? - Planning ahead after a divorce - ABLE accounts benefit disabled family members - Estate planning pitfall: You chose...more
ABLE (Achieving a Better Life Experience Act) accounts have become a popular savings tool for special needs individuals since the ABLE Act became law in December of 2014. Now that such accounts have been in existence for few...more
In 2014, new federal legislation was enacted to help relieve the financial strain often faced by so many individuals with disabilities or special needs. The Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (“ABLE Act”) was signed into...more
On December 14, 2016, President Obama signed the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act into law amended federal law to enable disabled individuals to establish their own first-party payback Special Needs Trusts under 42 U.S.C. §...more
Late last year, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act. The act authorizes a new, tax-advantaged savings account, modeled after the Section 529 college savings account,...more
Although the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (or ABLE Act) was signed into law on December 19, 2014, many states have been waiting to offer ABLE accounts authorized by the Act until the IRS published regulations. The...more