If you are the beneficiary of a trust, it may feel like you are at the mercy of the trustee. But depending on the type of trust, trust beneficiaries may have rights to ensure the trust is properly managed. A trust is a legal arrangement through which one person, called a “settlor” or “grantor,” gives assets to another person (or an institution, such as a bank or law firm), called a “trustee.” The trustee holds legal
A long-term care policyholder has successfully sued her insurance company for breach of contract after the company raised her premiums. At age 56, Margery Newman bought a long-term care insurance policy from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. She chose an option called “Reduced-Pay at 65” in which she paid higher premiums until she reached age 65, after which the premium would drop to half the original amount. The long-term care insurance contract set out the terms of the
If your Medicare drug (Part D) plan denies coverage for a drug you need, you don’t have to simply accept it. There are several steps you can take to fight the decision. The insurers offering Medicare drug plans choose both brand-name and generic medicines that they will include in a plan’s “formulary.” This is the roster of drugs the plan covers and will pay for, and it changes year-to-year. If a drug you need is not
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? It is difficult to do, but if you can prove you made the transfers for a purpose other than to qualify for Medicaid, you can avoid a penalty. You are not supposed to move into a nursing home on Monday, give all your money away on Tuesday, and qualify for
The federal government is issuing new Medicare cards to all Medicare beneficiaries. To prevent fraud and fight identity theft, the new cards will no longer have beneficiaries’ Social Security numbers on them. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the Medicare program, is replacing each beneficiary’s Social Security number with a unique identification number, called a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). Each MBI will consist of a combination of 11 randomly generated
For most taxpayers, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the overall tax burden. However, even though taxpayers will see an overall reduction in their taxes, many of them could still end up with a nasty tax bill at year-end. Following the passage of the TCJA, the IRS released updated withholding tables to reflect the new law. As a result, many people saw their paychecks increase. But the withholding tables didn’t take into account the wide
Families face a variety of estate planning challenges, and family drama may be chief among them. In fact, 44 percent of planning professionals say family conflict is the biggest threat to estate planning this year, followed by tax reform (25 percent) and market volatility (12 percent), according to a survey by TD Wealth. Though conflict may make planning a challenge, a careful estate plan can reduce future family feuds. Take these steps to minimize tension after you’re
If you are planning a divorce, talk to an adviser about how changes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will affect your taxable income. Under the new law, for divorce agreements executed after Dec. 31, 2018, payers no longer receive a deduction for alimony payments and recipients no longer have to include them in taxable income. Arguably, if you will be making sizable alimony payments, you have an incentive to finalize your agreement before
When celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain died, his will contained a directive leaving his frequent flyer miles to his estranged wife to “dispose of in accordance with what she believes to be his wishes.” Bourdain’s frequent flyer account was almost assuredly large. He built the latter half of his career as a globetrotter, traveling the world sharing meals and exotic food experiences. Though most people probably don’t have as many frequent flyer miles as Bourdain,
The fiduciary rule, a regulation that required financial advisers to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own, is now dead. Enacted in 2016 after five years of development in the Department of Labor, the fiduciary rule was slated to go into full effect in 2019. But a federal court of appeals made a decision that voided the rule, finding that the Department of Labor overstepped its authority. Fiduciary basics In a financial sense, fiduciaries are
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