The amount you can gift to any one person without filing a gift tax form is increasing to $16,000 in 2022, the first increase since 2018. The federal estate tax exclusion is also climbing to more than $12 million per individual.
Elder law and estate planning serve two different — but equally vital — functions.
If your family contains opposite-gender parents in the first marriage for each and one or more kids, all healthy and thriving, your estate plan will probably be pretty straightforward. But if not, it’s not as simple and you have a lot of company.
What happens if you become incapacitated and are unable to voice your opinion on your health care? If you don’t have a health care proxy or guardian in place, state law chooses who can make those decisions.
When applying for Medicaid’s long-term care coverage, in addition to the strict income and asset limits, you must demonstrate that you need a level care typically provided in a nursing home.
Most states either have laws specifically prohibiting pets and humans to be buried together or are silent on the issue. But at least four states have laws allowing some form of combined burial, and the list will undoubtedly grow as demand increases.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced the amounts taxpayers of different ages can deduct from their 2022 income as a result of buying long-term care insurance, and the figures are almost the same as in 2021.
Medicare premiums are rising sharply next year, cutting into the large Social Security cost-of-living increase. The basic monthly premium will jump 15.5 percent, or $21.60, from $148.50 to $170.10 a month.
When the SSA closed its offices at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it failed to provide practical ways for the elderly and people with disabilities to demonstrate their eligibility or challenge its decisions, according to a class-action lawsuit.
With the fate of the estate tax exemption uncertain, you may want to use the current large exemption to transfer assets to a trust to benefit your spouse. A spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT) can help transfer assets outside of your estate.