Community Spouse Resource Allowance:
In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson explains the difference between Illinois and Missouri laws and how they affect the Community Spouse, regarding monthly income and reiterates that DCEL can help you protect your life savings!
Video Transcript:
Greetings! I’m Wes Coulson from Dent Coulson Elder Law and this will be your Elder Law Minute. We’re happy to present these because we think we can help inform you as to the ways in which we can help you and the things that you need to think about, relative to the elder care and estate planning journey. Hope you enjoy.
In a previous elder law minute I talked about the allowances that the spouse who is not in the nursing home gets to keep if the other one is. Well, those allowances indicate the amount of income that they get to have in the sense that if their income is less than that, they also get to keep part of the income of the spouse who’s in the nursing home. But, another questions that’s important to ask is, but what if that spouse’s income is more than that allowance?
Interestingly enough, the answer is not that they need to contribute all of that extra income toward the cost of the care of the nursing home. Actually the result is much different.
Community Spouse Resource Allowance:
– In Missouri, the community spouse gets to keep as much income as they have, no matter what that is and they don’t have to contribute any of it.
– In Illinois, after a time-lag, they contribute on a sliding scale that winds up being somewhere at most around 12% of their income.
That’s great, and it’s also a key to a planning opportunity for married couples. If we can turn assets that they can’t keep into income for that community spouse, we can effectively protect a lot more of their life savings than we could without that planning technique.
So I’m goin to tell you, if you are a spouse of a married couple and your spouse is in a nursing home and you’re paying privately for their care, you really should come see us because there is a whole lot we can do to help protect your life savings.
-Thanks
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“Your Trusted Advisor on the Elder Care Journey”
Dent-Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer’s Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older. At Dent-Coulson Elder Law, our clients’ well-being is our number one priority. For immediate help, call (618) 632-7000 (IL) or (314) 567-9292 (MO), or Contact Us and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
