Listen to Lawrence…Stimulus Check and Community Medicaid Lookback questions answered

May 18, 2020

Dear clients and friends,

Here are a couple more of your questions and my responses:

QUESTION:
Does someone who has died qualify for the $1200 stimulus payment?

ANSWER:
It is bound to happen more often than we would like. With over 80,000 recent deaths from Covid 19, many of these people will receive their stimulus checks after their deaths. Not surprisingly, however, the answer is no. A payment made to someone who died before receipt of the payment should be returned to the IRS in its entirety, unless the payment was made to joint filers and one spouse had not died before receipt of the payment, in which case, you only need to return the portion of the payment made on behalf of the decedent.

QUESTION:
Does this “new 2 and 1/2 year Medicaid look back” work for us? We used to think we could always self-insure. What’s your current advice?

ANSWER:
The answer to this question will change from client to client so I would recommend a consultation in order to flush out specific issues as they apply to you. Generally speaking, however, if you feel you have enough money to pay for your own care (self insure), there is nothing wrong with that.

If you want Medicaid to pay for the cost of your long term care, then advance planning will be necessary. As I have written many times, as of October 1st, you can no longer sit back and save all your money at the last minute because of the new 2 1/2 year look back for Community Medicaid.

I hope this helps.

Please pass this information to your family and friends and continue to keep your questions coming! If you are thinking about it, others are probably thinking about it too, so my answers will no doubt help you and many others. Let’s stay connected.

LISTEN TO LAWRENCE!

BE SAFE!