Names on Stock

I would talk to a financial and legal advisor before I did anything. The last thing you want to do is end up being taxed on something because "you didn't know". The IRS does not care if someone "does not know". In the end, if you made a mistake, it could cost the estate, add on taxes and you run the risk of losing it all.

Best wishes to you.

You can't take her name off of it. To give you some idea, my dad took his own money, started a brokerage account trying to get my uncle to invest so it had my uncles name on it as well. My uncle did not put one penny in that account, we could actually prove that paper trail, it became part of the spend down. They also took half the value of a car my dad was stupid enough to put my uncle on.

If they will take money that doesn't actually belong to the beneficiary pretty sure they aren't going to let you get by with hiding money that actually is hers.
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Looking at the other answers, no! she cannot gift it to you, she cannot transfer and hide the money at all. Accept it is part of the spend down. The only things exempt, sort of, is one car, a house, and a small life insurance policy or prearranged funeral.

Your best bet is to take the money and buy personal items. Phone, computer, clothes, things like that. Even a car. You can move it around but it must stay in her name.

Gifting doesn't work at all. My mom died of Alzheimers so we hired an elder law attorney to see what we would need to do to shelter my parents assets. My dad was paying for part of my college, as he did for my brother, if my mom had gone into a home, a medicaid bed, I would have had to return to the government all the tuition he paid. The law is that crazy.

We were just talking about this in our family. We were told it doesn't matter if other names are on it, your mother's is, so they will count it. If you remove her name, I'm sure they'll find out.

Medicaid will consider the account to belong to the parent 50% when jointly held. In the case of 3 people, it may be 33%. Medicaid I believe can also try to prove all the money belongs to the parent. It would have to do with tracing where the funds came from to purchase the stock. Flip side if you can prove you and your sister actually provided all the funds, Medicare will take her name off. The rationale is if there is money to pay for her care that came from her, it should be used before the public absorbs all the cost.

I agree with Jo W. Medicaid is not the IRS. This isn't about taxes, it's about the required spend down of assets before Medicaid kicks in. I would consult with someone who specializes in elder care estate planning on this, but here's my take based on some basic info gleaned through my family's experience:

Your mother owns 1/3 of the account. She will need to use her 1/3 of the account to pay for her nursing home care before Medicare will kick in. You will have to have your broker sell 1/3 of the shares of the account and amend the account ownership. You and your sister should be able to retain your 1/3 and her 1/3. If I were you, I would open up separate accounts for each of you. No need to have to go through this again years from now.

If she were to try to remove her name or "gift" the shares to you and/or your sister, she would be penalized more than $8K per month until she reaches the value of her 1/3. So say the account is worth $100K. Her portion is worth $33K and change. If she tried to gift or hide that, she would be ineligible to have Medicaid cover any expenses for approximately 4 months. This is because Medicaid estimates the cost of a month of nursing home care at $8K and change. Any gifts given in the past 5 years have this string attached. As Jo mentioned, once her portion of the account is sold and her name is no longer attached to the account, she can spend the money on her own care and once it's gone, it's gone. Nothing that would be considered an "asset" that Medicare includes in their evaluation. This is where an elder care specialist is important - they can tell you what kinds of expenses are exempt from being considered assets and wouldn't be considered fraudulent. For example, she can buy a burial plot and pre-pay her funeral expenses up to a certain amount, own a cheap car (worth $4500 or less), or buy a small life insurance policy, set up a trust for funeral or burial, etc.

I don't have an answer for you.

But here's my wild story: when my Dad died, he had MetLife stock. The stock was in his name, with my Sis/me listed as benificiaries. We also held the MetLife policies as beneficiaries which these stocks were based on. We were not joint/co-owners, simply benies.

When he died, my Evil Stepmom fought & fought & fought with MetLife & Mellon (which holds the stock). She wanted her name placed on the stock as his surviving spouse/estate executor. Before we could stop her, she had this completed. & then she sold the damn stock & kept the $$$.
She released a small amount to each of us....only after years of fighting.

Soooo, do what you can to make sure everything is legal & above board....& ready to move into your names before your Mom passes. :)

I think everyone is right in that the joint money will still be considered your mother's assets. But think of this as a good thing. Have you tried applying for nursing homes? Trying to get my father admitted into a nursing home was almost as hard as getting into a good college.

Most good nursing homes don't have Medicaid beds available. It is not profitable for them. And when the Medicaid beds do become available, priority is given to nursing home residents who had spent all of their money on nursing care in that nursing home, and now qualified for Medicaid.

When we visited nursing homes for our father, most of the nursing homes had no beds available. (My father was incapacitated and required oxygen and a feeding tube, so he needed an actual nursing home, and not assisted living.) In talking to the nursing home administrators, I got the feeling that they really only wanted to take in paying patients. They knew that my father would never fully recover from his stroke and that he would spend the rest of his life in the nursing home. We had to fill out extensive paperwork listing my father's assets. Only then did they call us to tell us that a bed had suddenly become available for our father.

I don't know if it is legal for a nursing home to give priority to patients that have more assets, but I am convinced that it is part of their business strategy. Consider your mother's stocks gone. But be glad that you can list them as an asset on your admissions forms and use them to pay for her care. Good luck!

This can be a tricky area and state laws can vary. I don't think you can do it. I would consult a local attorney familiar with this area of law to be sure.

I would think, she needs to agree to it.

Call the company that has the stock. Ask them to remove your mom's name and keep you and your sister names on it. It should be the same as when the 1 person passes on and have the name change on it.

If you mother chooses she can gift $14K per person without being taxed. So if she has less than $28K invested she can choose to gift each of you $14K. I am not sure if she can also include the $13K per person from 2012. Also, if you and your sister have husbands (assuming you would want them to be included on your assets) she can gift each couple $28K this year. A possible total $56K this year and $52K from 2012.

I agree with talking to a professional to make sure any decision is legal and ethical.

edit: I am not familiar with medicare/caid but do know of aging parents and grandparents who like to gift money to make sure the money goes to loved ones more than to taxes when they pass away. Sounds like others have real experiences. Regardless of others experience, I stick to my original statement that you and your mother should talk to a professional to see what makes sense for her specific situation. Could her assets be used for her in the nursing home and then have medicaid help?