Home appraisers are the unofficial umpires of residential real estate sales, deciding whether offering prices are fair or foul. But much more often than in the past, they’re striking out deals and sending buyers and sellers back to the dugout. Each month, between 10 and 20 percent of real estate agents are seeing accepted offers to buy a home founder or collapse as a result of appraisals that came back too low, according to recent surveys
Medicare will cover a nursing home stay entirely for the first 20 days, as long as the patient was first admitted to a hospital as an inpatient for at least three days. But a growing number of seniors are finding that Medicare won’t pay for a nursing home stay because they weren’t actually “admitted” as an inpatient at the hospital – they were merely held under “observation.” Frequently, these patients have no idea that they weren’t
The amount you can deduct on your taxes as a result of buying long-term care insurance has been increased by the IRS for 2012. If you itemize your deductions, you can generally deduct part of your premiums if the premiums, together with your other unreimbursed medical expenses, amount to more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income. The maximum amount of premiums you can deduct each year depends on your age at the end of
A part of the new federal health care law that would have set up a voluntary, government-run insurance program for long-term care has been scrapped by the Obama Administration. The program, known as the “CLASS Act,” would have allowed people to pay monthly premiums for five years, after which they would be eligible for future benefits to help pay for long-term care services that are not covered by Medicare. But the Administration has concluded that there’s
Many power of attorney and health care proxy documents that were created years ago should be revised now as a result of a federal medical privacy law. The law, known as HIPAA, generally prevents health care providers from disclosing your personal medical information to anyone but you and someone you’ve named as your “personal representative.” Medical privacy is a good thing – but the law can create complications.
Many older people would like to make significant gifts to their grandchildren, in order to help them and in order to reduce the size of their own estate for tax purposes. But they also worry that the grandchildren won’t be able to handle large sums of money. The good news is that you can give each of your grandchildren up to $13,000 a year without incurring any gift tax. If you’re married, your spouse can also
Business owners focus a lot of attention on building better products. When their products are hot, the company does well, despite other shortcomings. Certainly, new and better products are essential, but focusing on building a better business – one that readily adapts to change and quickly responds to crisis may be even more important. How can you build a better business? Consider the following strategies. Manage capital needs. Growing businesses have an appetite for capital. Two
Taxpayers who are struggling to pay their taxes may get some relief from the IRS’s expansion of its “Fresh Start” initiative, a program started back in 2008. The new Fresh Start provisions provide penalty relief to the unemployed and make installment agreements on taxes owed available to more people. Normally, a failure-to-pay penalty of one-half of one percent per month, up to a 25% maximum, is charged for overdue taxes. The “Fresh Start Penalty Relief” initiative
Tuesday, April 17, is the deadline for filing certain returns and taking certain tax-related actions. Here are the major deadlines. Filing 2011 income tax returns for individuals. If you cannot file your return by this deadline, be sure to file an extension request by April 17. The automatic extension (you don’t need to explain to the IRS why you need more time) gives you until October 15, 2012, to file your return. An extension does not,
Jerome and Sandra Murray signed a “joint will” in 1993. It provided that if one of them died, the other would inherit all the property. It also said that the will couldn’t be modified unless they both agreed to any changes. Unfortunately, the couple divorced in 2001. In the divorce settlement, Sandra received a condo in New York. In 2006, she put the condo into a trust. The trust document said that if she died, the
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