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Elder Abuse Numbers Expected to Increase as Boomers Age
Law enforcement officials, elder lawyers and CPAs all have financial elder abuse in their sights, as a large generation of Americans reaches their senior years and becomes a target for scammers.
The numbers are high already—one in 20 seniors says that they have been the victim of financial abuse, according to the National Adult Protective Services Association. A recent article by The Journal of Accountancy, “Ways to stop elder financial abuse before it starts,” outlines pragmatic information about the most common scams.
Read MoreBefore You Can Understand what a Bitcoin IRA is, You’ll Want to Understand Bitcoin
Every financial news outlet is exploring bitcoin, with some saying it’s the future of global currency and others pointing out the risks that are inherent in an unregulated market. But the first thing anyone considering using bitcoin needs to do is understand it, according to an article in Kiplinger, “The Bitcoin IRA: 5 Essential Facts You Need to Know.”
Read MoreYou Also Need Estate Planning While You’re Alive
Here’s the thing that most people get wrong. Even if you have no spouse, no children and no living relatives, you still want to have an estate plan in place.
Hometown Life, in its recent article, “Estate planning not just important in death,” notes that you might be making an assumption that estate planning only deals with death. That’s not true.
Read MoreDoes Debt Go With Us When We Die?
Estate planning and retirement planning meet at a few different points. Both should contain properly prepared documents that allow someone to make medical decisions and to handle financial affairs if you become incapacitated, and who should receive your assets after you pass away. But many people go into retirement with debt, or debts are incurred during retirement. What can you do about that?
fosters.com explores this in a recent article, “What happens to your debt in estate planning?” The article reminds us that this is where estate planning is needed. An estate plan is a set of instructions that lets us designate certain individuals to act on our behalf after we die, or while we’re living but incapacitated. It provides guidance about how our assets should be distributed to beneficiaries at death, or managed for us while we are alive but unable to do so on our own.
Read MoreWill Medicaid Take the Family Home?
For families of seniors who need but cannot afford long-term care, the idea of losing the family home is upsetting. To make the best possible decision, you need to understand the rules and how they apply to different care situations. Consider a widower who owns a home worth $220,000 and whose only income is Social Security. The only other assets he owns are his late wife’s jewelry valued at $100,000. Does he have to sell his wife’s jewelry and, as asked by nj.com, “What happens to your house with Medicaid?”
In this case, and in many other cases, the answer is based on whether the parent will be staying at home or moving into a facility for long term care services.
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