Social Security
MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLANS ENROLLMENT CHANGE
By José M Olivero
Social Security Public Affairs Specialist in Oklahoma City
When you think of the end of the year you may imagine such things as turkey dinners, family gatherings, Veterans Day, or the start of the holiday shopping season.
But newly entitled and current Medicare beneficiaries, who are considering changes to their Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan, might think of August and September as the time for thinking about Medicare. That’s because the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program Open Season this year runs from October 15 to December 7. Those dates reflect a change in the Law from the old dates that were traditionally from November 15 to December 31.
Joining a Medicare prescription drug plan is voluntary, and participants pay an additional monthly premium for the coverage. Some people with limited resources and income are eligible for Extra Help to pay for monthly premiums, annual deductibles, and prescription co-payments. To qualify for this Extra Help:
• You must reside in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia;
• Your resources must be limited to $12,510 for an individual or $25,010 for a married couple living together. Resources include such things as bank accounts, stocks, and bonds. We do not count your house and car as resources; and
• Your annual income must be limited to $16,245 for an individual or $21,855 for a married couple living together. Even if your annual income is higher, you still may be able to get some help. Some examples where your income may be higher are if you or your spouse:
o Have earnings from work; or
o Live in Alaska or Hawaii.
And, as our celebrity spokesperson Chubby Checker will tell you, a new “twist” in the law makes it easier than ever to qualify. Social Security no longer counts as a resource any life insurance policy. We also no longer count as income the help you may receive when someone else provides you with food and shelter, or someone else pays your household bills for food, mortgage, rent, heating fuel or gas, electricity, water, and property taxes.
Here are some of the things you can do during the Open Enrollment Period:
o Change from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage Plan.
o Change from a Medicare Advantage Plan back to Original Medicare.
o Switch from one Medicare Advantage Plan to another Medicare Advantage Plan.
o Switch from a Medicare Advantage Plan that doesn’t offer drug coverage to a Medicare Advantage Plan that offers drug coverage.
o Switch from a Medicare Advantage Plan that offers drug coverage to a Medicare Advantage Plan that doesn’t offer drug coverage.
o Join a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.
o Switch from one Medicare Prescription Drug Plan to another
o Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.
o Drop your Medicare prescription drug coverage completely
To apply for Extra Help, complete the Application for Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs (SSA-1020) online at www.socialsecurity.gov/extrahelp. You also can call 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778). Social Security representatives can help you apply over the phone or mail an application to your home.
To learn more about the Medicare prescription drug plan, visit www.medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227; TTY 1-877-486-2048).
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Releases 2010 Cost of Care Study
Genworth Financial released its 2010 Cost of Long Term Care Comparisons report that compares the costs in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home health and adult day health care providers in 436 regions across America. According to the 2010 report, the national average median daily rate for adult day health is $60, up from $53.59 in the 2009 report, but only slightly above the 2008 findings of $59. Genworth began including adult day health centers in their study in 2008. The 2010 report included responses from over 1,300 adult day centers. Since adult day centers structure rates in a variety of ways, all rates in the Genworth survey were extrapolated to a daily (6-8 hour) rate. Read the full results of Genworth's 2010 Cost of Care Survey here: www.genworth.com/content/products/long_term_care/long_term_care/cost_of_care.htrWT.mc_id=COCO1
Read this article by Kim Dixon of Reuters . . .
IRS High-Wealth Unit to Focus on Business Entities
By: Kim Dixon of Reuters Oct 28, 2009
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service's new global wealth unit will focus on taxpayers with assets worth tens of millions of dollars who are sheltering wealth through complex business entities, the IRS chief said on Monday.
The IRS unit, which started operations in recent months, is part of a broader effort at the agency to combat international tax evasion, and the unit will grow over time, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told a meeting of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman told the meeting. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."
The high-wealth unit will focus on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals, Shulman said.
While use of sophisticated legal structures are at times legal, there are other instances where they "mask aggressive tax strategies," he said. Tax authorities in Japan, Germany and the UK have also created such divisions. He said the agency is in the early stages of building the bureau. An IRS spokesman could not quantify the projected growth in the division to which Shulman alluded.
The IRS is opening new offices in Beijing, Panama City and Sydney, to focus on funds flowing out of Europe and into Asia, in part because of a heightened focus on international enforcement in Europe, Shulman said. At the center of the agency's offshore effort has been its legal cases against Swiss banking giant UBS AG, which has agreed to turn over nearly 5,000 names of individual American clients and paid $780 million to settle a criminal case for aiding tax evasion.
The commissioner sought to differentiate between the crackdown on rich individuals evading taxes and President Barack Obama's budget proposals to change the rules that govern how multinational corporations are taxed on overseas profits. Obama has proposed raising more than $200 billion by tightening international corporate tax rules. On the corporate side, the agency is focusing on corporations who push "tax planning beyond acceptable bounds," he said. (Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Gary Hill).
