Drafting Irrevocable Trusts to Preserve Medicaid and VA Benefits

When integrating estate with long-term care planning, elder law practitioners and tax advisers use irrevocable trusts to protect assets and qualify clients for VA and Medicaid benefits more efficiently. Counsel must know about different types of trusts and how trust terminology affects both the grantors and beneficiaries.

Counsel and advisers must understand income and transfer tax rules related to irrevocable trusts, which assets can go into the trust, rules on who can serve as trustee, prohibited trustee powers, how to make distributions, and various tax considerations.

Our panel will explain the difference between grantor and non-grantor trusts and how to use the grantor trust rules to a client's advantage. The panelists will also explain drafting approaches for trusts that maximize both income and transfer tax consequences, so the assets transferred to these irrevocable trusts are excluded from your client's Medicaid estate but included in your client's federal gross estate.

Listen as our authoritative panel of elder law and estate planning counsel outlines best practices to integrate irrevocable trusts into the estate and long-term care planning to ensure that clients meet the VA and Medicaid eligibility requirements and receive maximum asset preservation in the most tax-efficient manner possible.