Estate Planning

Academy of Special Needs Planners co-founder Diedre Wachbrit's article "9 Costly Mistakes to Avoid in Planning for Your Special Needs Child" appears in the March 30, 2007, edition of the US Autism & Asperger Association's Weekly News.

Choosing a trustee is one of the most important and difficult issues in creating a special needs trust. Here are some suggestions.

An inheritance from parents who fund their child's special needs trust by will rather than by revocable living trust is in the public record. Predators are particularly attracted to vulnerable beneficiaries, such as the young and those with limited self-protective...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently ruled that when a person dies, his or her IRA may be transferred to a child's SNT free of estate or gift taxes, and that required minimum distributions from that IRA to the SNT...

Parents of children with special needs must be concerned with ensuring that medical and financial decisions will continue to be made in the child's best interest once the child reaches age 18 -- the age of legal capacity.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has put off the question of whether a special needs trust beneficiary is eligible for Medicaid until the state can locate its apparently lost Medicaid plan from 1972.

In many cases, the trustee of a special needs trust should hire a professional investment adviser. Here are some guidelines for hiring one.

Two estate planning attorneys have written a highly readable overview of the fundamentals every family needs to consider when planning for the future of a person with special needs.