Murphy & Berglund Elder Law, Medicaid & Estate Planning News

The Department of Veterans Affairs has finalized new rules that make it more difficult to qualify for long-term care benefits. The rules establish an asset limit and asset transfer penalties for claimants applying for VA pension benefits.

While the new tax law doubles the federal estate tax exemption, meaning the vast majority of estates will not have to pay any federal estate tax, it doesn't mean you should ignore its impact on your estate plan.

A promissory note is normally given in return for a loan. Classifying transfers as loans rather than gifts can be useful because it sometimes allows parents to "lend" assets to their children and still maintain Medicaid eligibility.

Although a nursing home cannot require a child to be personally liable for their parent's nursing home bill, there are circumstances in which children can end up having to pay.

The choice of beneficiary for IRA, SEP or 401(k) or other retirement plans can have significant tax implications.  Here are some of the rules and concerns when designating beneficiaries.

Medicaid law imposes a penalty period if you transferred assets within five years of applying, but what if the transfers had nothing to do with Medicaid? How do you prove you made the transfers for a purpose other than to qualify for Medicaid?

Older parents are becoming more common, driven in part by changing cultural mores and advances in infertility treatment. But later-in-life parents have some special estate planning and retirement considerations.

While most of the new tax law has to do with reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, some provisions relate to individual taxpayers, including changes to the estate tax and 529 accounts.

After staying the same for five years, the amount you can give away to any one individual in a particular year without reporting the gift will increase in 2018. Very few taxpayers will have to pay a gift tax in any case.

You may be afraid of losing your home if you have to enter a nursing home and apply for Medicaid. While this fear is well-founded, transferring the home to your children is usually not the best way to protect it.

When one member of a couple moves to a nursing home, we expect that spouse will be the first to die, but this isn’t always the case. What happens if a Medicaid recipient's spouse dies first?