Settlement Planning

The special economic stimulus payments authorized by Congress in February will not affect the benefits of persons receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or other federal benefits.

This book offers a boilerplate special needs trust. Our reviewer finds many flaws and asks: Why would you want to scrimp on the one tool that will provide for your child'™s lifetime care?...

Income paid from a special needs trust to a beneficiary will reduce SSI benefits by one dollar for every dollar paid to him or her directly. In addition, payments by the trust to the beneficiary for food or housing are...

Special needs trusts (also known as "supplemental needs" trusts) allow a disabled beneficiary to receive gifts, lawsuit settlements, or other funds and yet not lose his or her eligibility for certain government programs. Such trusts are drafted so that the...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case that questions just how much money a state can actually recover when it comes time to collect its Medicaid lien on a personal injury award.

When you add a special needs trust to a financial aid calculation, things can get complicated because the regulations governing federal financial aid don't do a very good job of distinguishing special needs trusts from other types of trusts.

When Richard West, a 63-year-old veteran with muscular dystrophy, caught his home health care provider overbilling the state of New Jersey for services that it provided to Medicaid patients, he never expected that the state would reward him for his...