AID AND ATTENDANCE BENEFITS HELP MILITARY VETERANS WITH HEALTH AND HOMECARE COSTS

June 18, 2018

Ventura Family Law Health Care, Military, Veterans , , , , , Leave a comment

Major issues are taking place around the world directly impacting our finances, which seem to be at the center of all things. Finances, aging, and health care. At our age what else is there?

If you’re a senior citizen then you know what I’m talking about. Creaky joints and forgetful episodes are the least of our problems. Health and homecare have become major issues to our population that continues to grow older. Where are we going to live? and who’s going to help us when tying our own shoelaces becomes a thing of the past? become big questions. How will we be able to take care of our physical and mental maladies when we can no longer afford to care for ourselves?

Many of us have to face these and similar health and home related issues head on every day, beginning as soon as we try getting up in the morning. Many aging military veterans dealing with real life home, homeless, and health issues seem to have it even tougher than the average citizen. Veterans return from distant wars having been exposed to many unhealthy toxins only to find inadequate healthcare awaits them. Many physical and mental challenges to deal with, yet our veterans have seemingly few healthy medical or homecare options available at home. If our veterans don’t end up sick and dying, they age. Like we all do. And we’re all aging at the same time in record numbers right now.

Senior veterans need to be aware that there is help available from the government and it’s called Aid and Attendance. Veterans can obtain benefits that can be applied to costs of a senior living community. But most vets and many senior living communities seem to be unaware of this benefit. Pass this information along.

If you’re a wartime veteran, or a surviving spouse of a wartime veteran, and you’re 65 years or older, you may be entitled to a tax-free benefit called Aid and Attendance provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The benefit is designed to provide financial aid to help offset the cost of long-term care for those who need assistance with the daily activities of living such as bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring.

PAID IN ADDITION TO A VETERAN’S BASIC PENSION

Aid and Attendance is a benefit paid by Veterans Affairs (VA) to veterans, veteran spouses or surviving spouses, and it is paid in addition to a veteran’s basic pension. According to California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform the benefit may not be paid without eligibility to a VA basic pension.

A pension is a benefit that the VA pays to wartime veterans who have limited or no income and who are at least 65 years old or, if under 65, are permanently or completely disabled. There are also “Death Pensions,” according to California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, which are needs based for a surviving spouse of a deceased wartime veteran who has not remarried.

Aid and Attendance is for applicants who need financial help for in-home care, to pay for an assisted living facility or nursing home. It is a non-service connected disability benefit, meaning the disability does not have to be a result of service. You cannot receive non-service and service-connected compensation at the same time.

Canhr.org also lists the service requirements for Aid and Attendance benefits. A veteran or the veteran’s surviving spouse may be eligible if the veteran: Was discharged from a branch of the United States Armed Forces under conditions that were not dishonorable AND Served 90 days of continuous military service (active duty), with at least one day during the following wartime periods (did not have to serve in combat):   World War I: April 6, 1917, through November 11, 1918; World War II: December 7, 1941, through December 31, 1946; Korean War: June 27, 1950, through January 31, 1955; Vietnam War: August 5, 1964 (February 28, 1961, for veterans who served “in country” before August 5, 1964), through May 7, 1975; Persian Gulf War: August 2, 1990, through a date to be set by Presidential Proclamation or Law.

If the veteran entered active duty after September 7, 1980, generally he or she must have served at least 24 months or the full period for which called or ordered to active duty, with certain exceptions.

MEDICAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR AID AND ATTENDANCE BENEFITS

In listing the medical qualifications for Aid and Attendance benefits, veteranaid.org says a wartime veteran or surviving spouse must need the assistance of another person to perform daily tasks, such as eating, dressing, undressing, taking care of the needs of nature, etc. Blind individuals, patients in a nursing home for mental or physical incapacity, or residents in an assisted living facility also qualify. Any application will require medical evaluation from a physician, current medical issues, net worth limitations, and net income, along with out-of-pocket expenses.

Veteranaid.org says financial qualifications must have an average of less than $80,000 in assets, excluding their home and vehicles.

A veteran can receive up to $2,846 monthly with the Aid and Attendance benefit, says americanveteransaid.com. The Website provides a Benefit Table that lists qualifying benefits as such:

Status                                                  Monthly Benefit Amount

  • Surviving Spouse                                       $1,176
  • Single Veteran                                            $1,830
  • Married Veteran                                        $2,169
  • Two Vets Married                                      $2,903

Aid and Attendance benefits are tax free.

MORE VETERAN AID IS ON THE WAY

Steven Monroe says there are other organizations helping seniors and American veterans as well. Monroe, writing for the SeniorCare Investor at senoircare.levinassociates.com, cites Luke’s Wings, which provides air travel for families to visit vets in the hospital, or in the case of seniors, when they are in hospice care.

Militaryoneclick.com – which connects caregivers of U.S. veterans with the essential resources needed to strengthen the family support foundation; American Freedom Foundation – supports veterans helping to empower and enable them to lead confident and productive lives; Fisher House Foundation – provides a “home away from home” for military families to be close to a loved one during hospitalization; Homes for Heroes Foundation – coordinates financial assistance and housing resources to the Heroes of our nation such as Military personnel, Police/Peace Officers, Firefighters and First Responders who are in need; Hope for The Warriors – helps enhance the quality of life for post-9/11 service member, their families, and the families of the fallen who have sustained physical and psychological wounds in the line of duty.

I encourage all military veterans to keep searching for available resources for your home and health needs. There are many people out there who care about what you’re going through. More help is on the way. Positive changes are being made within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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U.S. VETERANS GETTING CLOSER TO ACCESSING MEDICAL MARIJUANA

June 11, 2018

Ventura Family Law Medical Marijuana, Veterans , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The U.S. Congress is making important if not snail-paced strides toward helping to make medical cannabis accessible to military veterans. First, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) recently reintroduced the Veterans Equal Access Act, which would expand medical cannabis access to eligible veterans.

Secondly, on May 8, 2018, members of the House Veterans Affairs’ Committee approved H.R. 5520. This combined with S. 2796, a Senate companion legislation, that was introduced on May 7, 2018, and referred to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, would work toward facilitating the necessary research regarding medical marijuana and its affects in treating multiple symptoms suffered by military veterans.

EXPAND VETERANS’ ACCESS

H.R. 1820 would expand medical cannabis access to eligible veterans. In its language The Veterans Equal Access Act authorizes physicians and other health care providers employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to “provide recommendations and opinions” to veterans “who are residents of States with State marijuana programs” regarding the participation in said medical cannabis programs. The bill further authorizes the VA to complete any forms necessary to reflect such recommendations and opinions.

In further effort to reverse the VA’s decades long attitude against medical cannabis, Representative Blumenauer also filed an amendment that would forbade the VA from utilizing any of the funds derived from this bill for the purpose of prohibiting “VA providers from completing forms seeking recommendations or opinions regarding a Veteran’s participation in a State marijuana program.”

The two bills add up to major steps toward overcoming legal hurdles that have been used to outright prohibit VA doctors from making recommendations to veterans for medical marijuana use, even if compliant under state law.

The above-mentioned legislative attempts to change the law are important because the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department has a lengthy history of withholding support for medicinal cannabis access by military veterans. In October 2017, Tom Angell, writing at marijuanamoment.net, recorded how a new update to the VA’s Website had confirmed the longstanding agency policy of disallowing government physicians from helping veterans qualify for state medical cannabis programs.

“Veterans should know that federal law classifies marijuana – including all derivative products – as a Schedule One controlled substance,” Angell writes of the VA department Website page that can no longer be accessed. “This makes it illegal in the eyes of the federal government. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is required to follow all federal laws including those regarding marijuana. As long as the Food and Drug Administration classifies marijuana as Schedule One VA health care providers may not recommend it or assist Veterans to obtain it.”

The FDA could take forever on that one. Angell wonders what if VA doctors were still allowed to recommend medical cannabis to veterans, even though it is considered illegal under federal law? Wouldn’t that still be a benefit to a veteran’s health if a VA doctor believed as much? And what about the fact that the above referred to VA Website page has been taken down? Might that be proof that the VA is changing their prohibitive stance against medical cannabis?

For many years the VA has thrown up major obstacles to American veterans’ safe access to medicinal cannabis as a treatment option for veterans suffering from PTSD, chronic pain, and other post-war ailments. Yet VA doctors have had no problem prescribing seriously addictive opioids that have been attributed to thousands of American deaths. It’s time for this treatment model to change. Our veterans deserve the opportunity to exercise their free will and have more equal treatment from their treating physicians who know them best, to wit their VA doctors.

What is important for the VA administrators and doctors to understand is that we are talking about “recommendations” or “opinions” of VA doctors for the use of medicinal cannabis. We are not talking about prescriptions. The law is very clear in states and nationally. No physician in the United States, whether paid by the U.S. government or in private practice, can prescribe pot to patients. It’s against the law because the prescription process is federally-regulated and cannabis currently falls under the Controlled Substances Act’s restrictive Schedule I. Schedule I drugs are those considered to have a high potential for abuse without any currently accepted medical value.

Even with marijuana’s Schedule I status, there is nothing in federal law that prevents VA from allowing its doctors to recommend or give their opinion on their patients’ usage of medicinal cannabis in the states where it is legal to do so. It’s now time for VA doctors to do so as well.

THE STUDIES MUST BE DONE

The medicinal cannabis studies have to be done, for the benefit of military veterans and the greater civilian public, and H.R. 5520 is a good place to start. This new legislation seeks to authorize and instruct the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to research medical marijuana for use in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain in American soldiers returning from war.

As ordered and reported by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs on May 8, 2018, H.R. 5520, The Veterans Affairs Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2018, would act to codify VA’s existing authority to conduct such research. On that basis, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 5520 would cost less than $500,000 over the 2019-2023 period, primarily to prepare and submit the necessary reports to the Congress. That spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

FACILITATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA RESEARCH

The road to progress has not always been paved for success by the VA, which is another reason S. 2796, the Senate companion bill to H.R. 5520, was introduced in Senate on May 7, 2018, after which it was referred to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Regarding The VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2018, this bill (1) authorizes the VA to conduct and support research on the efficacy and safety of certain forms of cannabis and cannabis delivery for veterans enrolled in the VA health care system diagnosed with conditions such as chronic pain or post-traumatic stress disorder, and (2) Collected data shall be preserved in a manner that facilitates further research.

SOLUTIONS

The bottom line is the VA must act to change the internal prohibition of medical access for veterans to cannabis. Congress will have to continue to force the issue if the VA isn’t going to do anything to help veterans have access to medicinal cannabis.

House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Phil Roe, M.D. calls the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2018 a “pragmatic and bipartisan piece of legislation that would advance our understanding of the impacts of medicinal marijuana usage and could improve the lives of veterans and other Americans.” But it’s just a start. We need to push harder for federal government evolution on the issue of medicinal cannabis research and access for military veterans.

The government must permit VA medical providers to be able to discuss with U.S. veterans the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes and to be able to give recommendations and opinions in those states where medical marijuana laws exist.

We need to keep pushing for rescheduling of marijuana.

The VA needs to stop blocking federally-approved researchers from recruiting veterans for research on medical cannabis.

Studies must be performed regarding medicinal cannabis’ effects on veterans with PTSD issues. Such studies need to be performed and veterans must be given access to them.

MORE CHOICES AND FEWER BARRIERS; DOORS OPEN FOR MORE PRIVATE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA’S MILITARY VETERANS

June 4, 2018

Ventura Family Law Elder Law, Veterans , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

There are doctors and alternative methods to the art of healing that have proven track
records and military veterans deserve access to them should their health condition call for it. That’s why it was a big step when a deal was made calling for major reform that will soon take place within the United States VA. All that awaits is a President’s signature.

On May 23, the U.S. Senate passed with overwhelming approval by a vote of 92 to 5 the VA Mission Act of 2018 (S. 2372), which acts to combine the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) seven community care programs into one. The bill would also
extend the VA “Choice Program” for one year while the VA implements the new
consolidated community care program.

According to an article written by Lisa Rein of The Washington Post, the massive bill promises to expand access for military veterans to private doctors at taxpayer expense, which is another victory for President Trump as it helps to cement one of his biggest campaign promises. The $55 billion package makes a five-year commitment to addressing the many shortcomings in America’s largest health system, which still struggles with delays after a 2014 scandal in which VA employees were found to have fudged patient wait-lists.

The bill acts to inject an additional $5.2 billion into the “Choice Program.” The “Choice Program” allows veterans to obtain care from non-VA care providers. Presently, about one-third of veterans in the system see outside doctors through the program, which Congress hastily approved as a temporary remedy in response to the above scandal. But the program – designed to serve the overflow at VA facilities both of aging Vietnam-era veterans and younger service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – is “fragmented and unwieldy,” Rein writes. Doctors have complained of slow or nonexistent payments, and veterans say there’s insurmountable red tape involved.

The new measure passed the House on May 16 by a vote of 347 to 70 and now heads to
President Trump’s desk where it is expected to soon be signed, before funding for the
“Choice Program” runs out.

The “Choice Program” has been declared a wreck from day one and dramatic changes
have been anticipated ever since. According to The Washington Post article the
Congressional Budget Office estimates that as a result of the bill an additional 640,000
veterans will seek medical help outside the system each year. For the first time the VA
will have to negotiate contracts for veterans to seek care at private walk-in clinics.

The bill was negotiated between Congress, the White House, and veterans groups over
the past year. Negotiations were reportedly often contentious between widely divergent
competing financial interests running down party lines. During this time Trump fired his
VA secretary and nominated a White House physician as a replacement, only to have the
nomination disintegrate after claims of misconduct surfaced. That turmoil slowed
progress of the legislation.

MORE CHOICES AND FEWER BARRIERS FOR VETERANS

One of President Trump’s key campaign promises had been to allow for more private
medical care to military veterans. Veterans can expect to benefit from the bill through
more choice of doctors and fewer barriers to health care.

According to a blog written by Austin Igleheart, the measure also expands
the circumstances under which veterans can obtain non-VA health care. Currently,
veterans may seek third-party care if they face a wait of at least 30 days for a VA
appointment or live more than 40 miles from a VA facility. The VA Mission Act will
remove these limitations and allow veterans access to non-VA care if they require
services not offered by VA or if their doctor decides it is in their best interest. The bill
will also boost funding to recruit more doctors to VA in an effort to improve capacity.

Additionally, the VA Mission Act includes a provision that would expand VA’s Program
of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers to all veterans over the course of
two years. Currently, “monthly stipends, health insurance, medical training and access to home health aides are available to family caregivers for post 9/11 veterans”, Ingleheart writes, “but not to veterans from other eras and their families.”

IN THEIR OWN HOMES, AN ALTERNATIVE TO INSTITUTIONALIZED HEALTH
CARE

The program allows family caregivers to provide care for veterans in their own homes, offering an alternative to institutionalized care and reducing the costs to local governments associated with providing health care and other services to our nation’s veterans. Ingleheart writes that by allowing VA to contract with other entities to provide supportive services for family caregivers, and authorizing VA to compensate these entities for the services they provide, the VA Mission Act can help reduce costs for counties that provide such services.

The blog further notes that the bill intends to establish a prompt payment standard to
ensure reimbursements from VA to third-party care providers. This measure will help
ensure that health care providers are able to continue serving VA-eligible veterans in a
timely manner while avoiding unnecessary delays or added costs. This is all a blessing to
help bring greater qualify of life to a vastly underrepresented, exploited, and important
minority segment of our society, our military veterans.

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND CRYPTOCURRENCY IF YOU DIVORCE

May 28, 2018

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Cryptocurrencies are here to stay so you might as well learn about them. If you’re married, it could be financially beneficial to understand any involvement your spouse, with or without you, might have with this new financial asset class.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT CRYPTOCURRENCY

Why should you care about cryptocurrency like Bitcoin? Because cryptocurrency can be very valuable community property and hidden from you when it’s time for you to divorce and divide your community assets.

What is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is a digital cash system without a central authority. It is a decentralized system. Cryptocurrency is digital currency.

In 2018 this relatively new digital cash system known as the cryptocurrency market is expected to reach a total value of $1 trillion. According to data from businessinsider.com, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies stood at over $700 billion on January 3rd of this year.

Bitcoin is the leader of all cryptocurrencies. It is based on a blockchain. Blockchain is considered a technology that is changing the way people transact business. Blockchain technology allows us to make transactions without any central review body.

Bitcoin currently has the top cryptocurrency market cap at $140,905,000,000. That’s more than a hundred and forty billion dollars in Bitcoin alone. At the time of this writing, the price of one Bitcoin is $8,269.48.

Roger Ver, CEO at Bitcoin.com, calls Bitcoin technology one of the most important inventions in all of human history. “For the first time ever, anyone can send or receive any amount of money with anyone else, anywhere on the planet, conveniently and without restriction,” Ver says. “It’s the dawn of a better free world.”

It’s the dawn of a better free world if you know where all the community Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency your spouse bought are. But, you know, sometimes they get lost. Other times they get hidden out of plain view, which means you don’t know about them.

TRACING CRYPTOCURRENCY

There’s a lot of money out there in a lot of cryptos – at least $700 billion worth – and some of it might be yours. Cryptocurrency can be held in any number of ways. It can be held in virtual wallets and offline wallets. Your best friend can be holding the profits derived from his Lite Coin purchases in his girlfriend’s aunt’s maid’s name. Your spouse could be holding her Ethereum cryptocurrency stash overseas in a business partner’s name – a business partner you’ve never even heard of.

Bitcoin has been defined as, “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” It is considered a cryptocurrency because users can pseudnonymously transfer money directly to one another, peer to peer, without the use of a middleman like a bank, governmental authority, or Western Union. It’s called pseudononymously because users are assigned a string of numbers as their Bitcoin wallet address where they store their Bitcoins.

The problem in family law is that divorces become contentious and spouses sometimes don’t want to play by the rules — instead choosing to hide assets from their spouse that might otherwise be subject to equitable division in a marital settlement agreement.

Any specialist in family law you hire in divorce should routinely request discovery as to all cryptocurrencies that your spouse, and thus the community, might have an ownership interest in, whether you are aware of any being purchased during your marriage or not. If your spouse has suffered what he or she calls large gambling losses, or large amounts of money are found missing from community accounts, you’re going to want a forensic accounting to locate all suspected missing community assets.

Cryptocurrency can be traced back to a single spouse’s separate property just like any other tracing of a community property asset. It’s just that some assets are more difficult to trace than are others.

There are forensic analysts who specialize in tracking cryptocurrency and they can work to connect Bitcoin wallet addresses, for example, with the users’ actual identities. If large amounts of money are being transferred to a cryptocurrency exchange where cryptocurrencies are being purchased, this must be financially accounted for as well.

Same thing for the discovery of large cash withdrawals or transfers that were used to purchase cryptocurrency at peer-to-peer points of sale like localbitcoins.com. If it can’t be determined where that cash went, and your spouse doesn’t produce evidence re what he or she was doing with that cash, you will want an accounting thereof that leads to an equitable division of the community assets that were lost to you due to your spouse’s unauthorized withdrawals that led to the dissipation of community assets.

BOTTOM LINE IS TO SEARCH THEN SEIZE

Once you find the missing monies invested in hidden places, you have to get them out. That’s your family law specialist’s job, and that’s not always automatic. You might need passwords, usernames, and mnemonic seeds. If your spouse has played in the cryptocurrency market without you, it is possible your spouse has hidden a cache of profits derived from cryptocurrency business transactions in accounts under pseudonyms, other persons or business names, or they could have been transferred abroad.

If your divorce specialist has to go to court in an effort to retrieve hidden assets, your attorney will need to make a clear showing of how the money was transferred from a bank account or from some other community property asset to purchase the community cryptocurrency assets in dispute. When you hire a specialist in family law they can move the court for orders to exert pressure on your spouse to give up control over the hidden cryptocurrencies, and if that is not honored, the court can order an unbalanced division of community assets that will account for your share of the missing cryptocurrency.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DECEMBER 2017 TAX PLAN ELIMINATES DEDUCTIONS FOR ALIMONY PAYMENTS

May 21, 2018

Ventura Family Law Spousal Support, Uncategorized , , , , , Leave a comment

The burden of paying spousal support is about to reverse.  That’s because there’s a new tax law called, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that was passed by Congress in December 2017, that has effectively abolished tax deductions on alimony payments beginning January 1, 2019.  Under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, alimony payments will be neither tax deductible for the paying spouse nor taxable in the hands of the recipient spouse.

This new law will apply to payments that are required under divorce or separation instruments that are:

(1) executed after December 31, 2018, or,

(2) modified after that date if the modification specifically states that the TCJA treatments of spousal support payments (not deductible by the payor and not taxable income tax by the recipient) applies forthwith.

This new alimony provision is not retroactive, and it does not apply to divorces and separation orders entered into before 2019.

Until this new law, paying spousal support could be considered a “win-win” situation for both divorcing spouses.  The payor receives the benefit of a reduced tax obligation and the payee receives the benefit of more income than might otherwise be forthcoming if the payor spouse wasn’t receiving the benefit of the tax deduction.

This change in law could now prove expensive for individuals who must pay spousal support, because the tax savings normally derived from deducting spousal support payments can be substantial for high-earners.  One of the biggest disadvantages of the new tax law is that it could affect the desire of a higher-earning spouse to settle with their dependent spouse, since the deduction acts as a great motivator for the higher wage earner to agree to help support the spouse with less income in the first place.

WINDOW IS STILL OPEN

There is still a window for the payor to receive deductions for spousal support payments, but that window is closing.  If you are involved in divorce proceedings, or you are thinking about divorcing, and you want deductible spousal support treatment for some or all of the payments that you will make to your soon-to-be-ex, the TCJA gives you a huge incentive to get your divorce agreement wrapped up and signed by December 31, 2018.

On the other hand, if you anticipate being the recipient of spousal support, you have a big incentive to put off finalizing your agreement until next year, because the payments will become tax-free to you.

Either way, you should contact a specialist in family law, someone who is experienced in divorce tax issues, to get the best tax results for yourself.  Tax-wise, waiting too long could turn out to be an expensive mistake for years to come.

Lastly, be warned that many otherwise competent divorce lawyers are not up to speed on many of the new tax changes.  So don’t assume that just any family law attorney is capable of guiding you to the best tax results in your divorce.  Do your homework.  Contact a specialist in family law who is up to date on the latest tax changes that might affect you.  Find out who can best represent you regarding your spousal support requirements, and other family law-related issues.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DECEMBER 2017 TAX PLAN ELIMINATES DEDUCTIONS FOR ALIMONY PAYMENTS

May 14, 2018

Ventura Family Law Spousal Support , , , , Leave a comment

The burden of paying spousal support is about to reverse. That’s because there’s a new tax law called, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that was passed by Congress in December 2017, that has effectively abolished tax deductions on alimony payments beginning January 1, 2019. Under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, alimony payments will be neither tax deductible for the paying spouse nor taxable in the hands of the recipient spouse.

This new law will apply to payments that are required under divorce or separation instruments that are:

(1) executed after December 31, 2018, or,

(2) modified after that date if the modification specifically states that the TCJA treatments of spousal support payments (not deductible by the payor and not taxable income tax by the recipient) applies forthwith.

This new alimony provision is not retroactive, and it does not apply to divorces and separation orders entered into before 2019.

Until this new law, paying spousal support could be considered a “win-win” situation for both divorcing spouses. The payor receives the benefit of a reduced tax obligation and the payee receives the benefit of more income than might otherwise be forthcoming if the payor spouse wasn’t receiving the benefit of the tax deduction.

This change in law could now prove expensive for individuals who must pay spousal support, because the tax savings normally derived from deducting spousal support payments can be substantial for high-earners. One of the biggest disadvantages of the new tax law is that it could affect the desire of a higher-earning spouse to settle with their dependent spouse, since the deduction acts as a great motivator for the higher wage earner to agree to help support the spouse with less income in the first place.

WINDOW IS STILL OPEN

There is still a window for the payor to receive deductions for spousal support payments, but that window is closing. If you are involved in divorce proceedings, or you are thinking about divorcing, and you want deductible spousal support treatment for some or all of the payments that you will make to your soon-to-be-ex, the TCJA gives you a huge incentive to get your divorce agreement wrapped up and signed by December 31, 2018.

On the other hand, if you anticipate being the recipient of spousal support, you have a big incentive to put off finalizing your agreement until next year, because the payments will become tax-free to you.

Either way, you should contact a specialist in family law, someone who is experienced in divorce tax issues, to get the best tax results for yourself. Tax-wise, waiting too long could turn out to be an expensive mistake for years to come.

Lastly, be warned that many otherwise competent divorce lawyers are not up to speed on many of the new tax changes. So don’t assume that just any family law attorney is capable of guiding you to the best tax results in your divorce. Do your homework. Contact a specialist in family law who is up to date on the latest tax changes that might affect you. Find out who can best represent you regarding your spousal support requirements, and other family law-related issues.

THERE WAS A MAJOR GOLD RESET BUT NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT IN FAMILY LAW — UNTIL NOW

May 7, 2018

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Is the American financial system really crashing?  And if so, what are the indicators we should be looking for?  ITM Trading’s Chief Marketing Analyst Lynette Zang says we’ve been getting signals of a crash for quite some time now.

The former stockbroker and investment banker says she’s been referencing what she calls “pattern shifts” that have been speeding up since October of 2017.  She notes that “insiders”, heads of corporations like boards of directors and CEOs, have been “running for the exits” financially.

Zang also notes how global Central Banks, “not in this country, and not in Canada, but everywhere else,” are massively accumulating gold.  Why are they doing this?  Why are some of the world’s biggest banks and corporate heads “massively accumulating gold”?  Could it be that the gold hordes will be utilized toward a coordinated backing of those nations’ currencies?

Zang says it only makes financial sense.  “Because gold is a savings based currency,” the chief marketing analyst says.  Zang believes other countries are accumulating gold in record numbers in preparation for the reset of the debt.  If we’re a family, for instance, and we have a financial crisis, we can bail ourselves out of trouble through our savings.  Theoretically, we can throw money at it and get out of that crisis.  That’s one reason savings are so critical to our families’ survival.  But if we have no savings when that next crisis hits, how do we get out it?

Same thing with nations.  And if you’re a huge government like the United States, and you seemingly have no savings, just a bunch of intertwined bureaucracies trying to take the thin margin of profit from one another, what are you going to do when there’s no margin left to loot?  Where’s the money going to come from?  Where as individuals are we going to get our family’s financial security from?  Lynette Zang says that’s when it’s time to start a new financial system.

COME ON.  A NEW FINANCIAL SYSTEM?

Zang says that the reason a country should have major amounts of gold in its reserves is because, from a national perspective, gold creates fiscal responsibility.  That’s why all the other countries are buying it up in record numbers.

Now as far as the reset is concerned, it is about resetting the debt.  Zang says that if the financial reset is on a global scale, which she believes it is, because all the countries are in major financial debt, then the countries with the gold are going to be the ones with the savings.  They’re the ones who are going to be able to do the business, because they have savings.  The United States is not one of those countries.  That’s how the wealth is going to be transferred.

THATS HOW THE WEALTH IS GOING TO BE TRANSFERRED?

That’s how the American dollar has gone.  In the beginning, it was 100% backed by gold.  Then it was 25% backed.  We were taken off of that during the Nixon administration in 1971.  If having gold is a sign of fiscal responsibility, America’s dire financial condition is a sign of our lack of fiscal responsibility.

Zang believes that we who populate the United States will ultimately end up with Venezuela style hyperinflation.  If you don’t know what that means, look it up.  A good majority of the citizens in Venezuela operate from below the poverty line.  Economists say we’re going to suffer a similar fate.  Our standard of living is going to shift dramatically.  Globally on average about 80% of the population ends up in abject poverty.  In Venezuela that number is ninety percent.

Venezuela did a formal reset of their currency to gold on February 9th of this year.  The price of gold went up that day.

When the system crashes it’s not like you’re going to take your gold and silver and bury it in the back yard.   What you want to do is be prepared.  Think about your standard of living, and do what you can do to sustain that.  Food, water, energy, security, community, and silver and gold as barter.  Small denominations to be used for a tank of gas or to go to the grocery store and purchase blueberries.

During a financial crisis like Venezuela has faced, gold or silver may not pay you interest, but it is the safest thing you can do currency wise.  Zang also says you want a certain amount of cash out of the banks, because we’re not going to be given notice when the bank is going to shut down, or we’re not going to be able to get access to the financial system.  The more digital the financial system becomes, the more important cash will become.

Zang refers to 1996 when the National Security Agency white paper on cryptocurrencies came out which referenced cryptos as being outside the system.  “They are private,” she says.  “They’re invisible.”  You can have them in a wallet.  Zang believes this might be stretching the true intentions of the coming financial system, but she can’t be sure.  She wonders whether by telling us cryptocurrencies are outside the system, that they really mean that cryptos are “the system” the globalist controlling Banksters want us to adopt.

Other sources have alluded to the concept that in the U.S. there’s going to be a gold-backed cryptocurrency that will replace the U.S. dollar as our national currency.  In either scenario, it sounds like we’d better practice up on our digital cryptocurrency skills.  And save some gold and silver buried under a tree.  And read up on Venezuela-style hyperinflation and what it’ll take to survive it.

 

 

 

 

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