BLOG FOR JOHN SWEENEY - ELDER, WILLS, ESTATES, TRUSTS, SPECIAL NEEDS, BUSINESS, & TAX LAWYER IN CT AND NY

With the advent of Obamacare and all the changes in the health insurance markets, sometimes the easy thing for the employer is to tell his employees is, “I’ll give you $2,000, you should get your own health insurance”. In the […]

U.S. Citizens and permanent residents (green card holders) living outside the U.S.may not be aware of their U.S. tax obligations. The rules for filing income, estate and gift tax returns and for paying estimated tax are the same as if […]

Medicare Medicare pays your health costs after age 65.  It does not cover nursing home care or assisted living.   It does not test either income or wealth. Medicaid On the other hand, Medicaid (I know the name is very similar and it […]

The Tax Foundation publishes tax freedom day for every state.  You can read the report yourself here. The calculation takes into account all federal and state taxes.  Unfortunately, the day is 3 days later than last year. Tax Freedom day in […]

My brother had Mom change the title to her house to his name.  He then had her change the title on all her accounts to joint with himself.  He then had her change the beneficiary of her IRA to himself. […]

NY used to be a very expensive place to die.  As of March 31, less so. The federal law allowed you to pass $5.25M tax free.  NY was only at $1M.  NY topped that off with estate tax rates that […]

Wills vs Trusts In general, Wills are usually easy and cheaper up front, but more effort and expense later on, while Trusts (also know as Revocable Living Trusts or RLT) are more work up front, more expense up front, and […]

You can boost your annual Social Security benefit through a fancy strategy often referred to as delayed filing. Your Social Security Benefits are calculated using a formula called the primary insurance amount, or PIA. The way it works is that […]

In the past, it has been Medicare’s position that patients will be denied coverage for therapy services because they are not improving. Fortunately, in January, they changed the rule to eliminate any requirement that improvement is necessary to receive coverage […]

I’ve had clients who hid money offshore and didn’t pay tax on it.  They were evading taxes on purpose.  I didn’t like those guys and dropped them as clients. However, most of my clients have had “inadvertent” issues. Let’s see […]