This article is the first glimpse at part of the CLE materials that will be discussed tomorrow at NBI’s “Using Gifting Strategies for Medicaid Planning“ teleconference presented by attorney Martin Womer.
Written by Martin C. Womer
There are two categories of gifts for Medicaid purposes:
A transfer for less than fair market value (the traditional definition of gift); or
A statutorily defined transaction that constitutes a gift whether or not anything is actually given away.
How rigorous state Medicaid rules are about traditional gifts varies greatly. For example, in some states, a gift only occurs when the applicant or his or her spouse affirmatively transfers assets to another person. In other states, a gift may occur when the applicant (or his or her spouse) fails to act and thereby fails to receive an asset to which he or she is entitled. The classic example of this is failure of a surviving spouse to exercise his or her statutory elective share right under the state probate code. Failing to exercise the elective share is, in some states, a deemed gift because assets to which the surviving spouse was entitled by law pass instead to others under the deceased spouse’s estate plan or by intestate succession. [Read more...]
