A few weeks ago, couple comes into the office, moderate wealth, maybe $500,000 total. No federal estate tax, not with per person exemption of about $750,000 at this time. No Michigan estate tax, for our estate tax kicks in at federal levels.
But they want to be eligible for Medicaid on the grounds they have no assets to pay for their medical care, and thus transfer their entire estate to their children rather than pay for their medical care. Routine! And while we have no universal health care, we have medicaid for the wealthy, routine, and legal! What we do - what I do, its my job - is draw up an irrevocable trust wherein the couple cannot control their assets anymore - their chosen trustee can, a professional trustee, an institution, an adult child - which places all the assets, the house, the stocks, the mutual funds, the cds, the whatever, in the irrevocable trust. Now our couple no longer own their property, the trust does! We fund the couple at no more than $2,000 a person at any time in any calendar month period - although the trustee pays for everything else, so this $2 thou is just spending money - not too shabby! The trust pays all the taxes, utilities, upkeep on the house, whatever, all expenses of the beneficiaries, who are our original couple with the half million. Any income is received by the trust as an asset of the trust. The time line is 3 or 5 years, it was recently changed, and once that time period has passed, the law assumes that the transfer of assets to the trust was not done to avoid medicaid!!!!!!! And now, our couple qualifies for medicaid!!!!!!! All their doctor, medical, nursing home, prescriptions, will be covered by medicaid!!!!!!! (Your mother may be paying full price for her prescriptions because we have no prescription coverage for your mom who has a small home, a car, a small savings, and lives on social security.) And the beauty part is, that trust keeps on growing if it is invested well, and when our couple die, all that money will go to the children instead of having gone to pay for the couple's medical costs the last years of their lives. Yes, boys and girls, we finance medical care for those rich enough to afford an irrevocable trust, but we have do not for the people who are not wealthy enough to have an irrevocable trust. God Bless Americans with Money! Medicaid (tax dollars) has been used as a device to pay the medical needs of this couple and pass their untouched money to their children, and none of this is taxed! You gotta love it! Our office does a lot of these; I can kick one off the computer faster than you can say, "is that fair?" So for those very few people who actually have to pay the estate tax - thank God someone with money is paying a tax! Vince
