More and more parents have children and grandchildren with disabilities. Some of these children and grandchildren will never be able to work and will be dependent on government assistance programs for income, housing and/ or health care. Many of these government assistance programs have limits as to the income and assets the disabled person can have before being declared ineligible for coverage. Examples of “needs-based” government assistance programs include Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”), Medi-Cal and HUD Section 8 Housing.

In years gone by, parents and grandparents would disinherit their disabled beneficiary and give the child or grandchild’s inheritance to siblings or other relatives with the request that the funds received be used for the benefit of the disabled loved. There are many problems with this type of planning strategy.

A superior planning strategy is for the parent or grandparent to create a Special Needs Trust for the special need loved one. The inheritance is held in trust for the special needs loved one to provide for any needs that are not provided through government assistance. As such, the special needs beneficiary has the best of all worlds – he or she maintains his or her government assistance programs while also having additional funds available to provide for necessities as well as niceties not available to the special needs child through a government assistance program.

For much more information about estate planning for special needs children, visit our website at www.cal-special-needs-attorney.com.

Dennis M. Sandoval, A PLC, Joins the Special Needs Alliance

Dennis is proud to announce that he has been invited to join the prestigious Special Needs Alliance, an exclusive organization of attorneys that specialize in planning for special needs persons. Through his affiliation with the Special Needs Alliance, Dennis will have the collective wisdom and planning experience of some of the top special needs planning attorneys in the United States available to him and his special needs clients. Dennis is one of only six Special Needs Alliance members in California. The Special Needs Alliance has slightly over one hundred members nationwide. For more information on special needs estate planning, visit our website at www.cal-special-needs-attorney.com. You can get additional information about the Special Needs Alliance by visiting www.specialneedsalliance.com.

If you know of a special needs support group that would like to have Dennis give them a presentation on Special Needs Estate Planning, please contact our office. In the past year, Dennis has made informative and entertaining presentations to various Inland Empire and Orange County support groups dealing with individuals with Down Syndrome, Autism, Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, and ALS.

In most audits the IRS and California taxing authorities are only interested in collecting the taxes owed, plus interest and related late filing and/or payment penalties. However, if during the audit, the auditor suspects you may have committed tax fraud the taxing authority can assess a civil tax fraud penalty. The IRS civil tax fraud penalty is seventy-five percent of the tax owed. Worse yet, the auditor may ask a tax fraud specialist to review the case for possible referral for criminal tax fraud prosecution. Tax crimes include filing a false tax return, tax evasion, filing false documents, failure to collect employment taxes, failure to pay taxes, and failing to file a tax return.