On March 27, 2024, the Social Security Administration published a final rule in the Federal Register which changes its calculation of In-Kind Support and Maintenance (ISM). Under the prior rule, if food and/or shelter is provided to a recipient of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the income is deemed to the recipient, reducing his or her […]
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The following is a re-post of David E. Hultstrom’s Financial Foundations April 2024. You can reach Mr. Hultstrom at 770-517-8160. It’s tax season once again and time for the annual summary of the state of the fisc. I have no political point, this is just data. The causes of the numbers below are thoroughly bipartisan. […]
On April 1, 2024, the Washington Post published an article titled “Algorithms guide senior home staffing. Managers say care is suffering.” The article indicates that a system, called Service Alignment, was developed more than two decades ago when assisted living facility (ALF) executives began timing caregivers performing tasks. That data was fed into a computer […]
In February 2024, Justice in Aging released a new report based on California’s “performance measure” data from the state’s Medicaid assisted living program. Aging in Justice concluded that the quality of care measures provide no meaningful information. A perfect score tells you nothing about the quality of care residents receive. The report concludes that the […]
Recently the Special Needs Alliance published a new handbook for individuals with disabilities and their advocates. The SNA states: “The intent of this handbook is to explain some of the terms related to services and supports for people with disabilities, to introduce the process of transitioning from child services to adult services, and to provide […]
Each year statutory provisions require the IRS to adjust tax rates based on inflation. Although we’re a bit tardy posting the numbers, here are the ones that matter most for our purposes. Gift Tax Annual Exclusion: $18,000 per recipient or $36,000 per recipient for a married couple. This is not a limit on gifting, but […]
Recently a notice was published concerning a class action where the Plaintiffs alleged that real estate brokers engaged in anticompetitive practices, essentially violating federal antitrust law. This, by the way, is the law that broke up Ma Bell and gave us dozens of different phone providers. The case is Burnett et al. v. The National […]
Historically, unborn embryos have not been considered children. Recently, in LePage v. The Center for Responsive Productive Medicine, P.C., the Alabama Supreme Court found otherwise. Ordinarily this would not be an “elder law” issue, but the law considers unborn children to be potential heirs of an estate. For example, O.C.G.A. § 53-2-1(b)(1) provides: Children of […]
Guardianship Evaluation In most cases I’ve been involved in, the evaluator’s report is stipulated into evidence or the evaluator is called as a witness. The reason is that the report cannot be cross-examined so the thought was that it’s subject to a hearsay objection. A recent case taught me otherwise (at least in Georgia). In […]
A Petition for writ of certiorari in the case of Dermody v. Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services is pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue is “Whether an annuity that satisfies the condition in 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)(2)(B)(i) determining the Medicaid eligibility of a married institutionalized person must name the state […]
