Taxes and end of life healthcare. MSN explains why millennials could inherit nothing from their parents.

[i]Photo above - don't be naive. the average nursing home doesn't look anything like this, and it still costs $10,000 a month.
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MSN says our moms and dads let us down). Despite decades of saving and mortgage payments, we (the kids) aren't likely to inherit much. Taxes and elder healthcare will take almost all of it. (see link below)

The healthcare aspect I immediately get. The average nursing home costs $10,000 per month. More if you live in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. More if the care involves dementia. That's at least $120,000 a year. How much is their social security and pension? My best friend’s mother-in-law has been in a dementia nursing care facility now for a year and half. It sounds morbid, but the kids are watching her 401k and other assets melt away to zero. Insurance doesn’t cover long term care, unless they bought an outlandishly expensive policy specifically for that outcome. If democrats or republicans have a plan to tackle this $10,000 a month end of life tariff, I haven't read about it.

But taxes are evidently where millennials' minds are really going to be blown. Evidently capital gains taxes will prevent them moving into mom and dad's longtime home. The IRA and 401K rules are even more complicated but suffice it to say that almost anything after passing is going to trigger a massive increase in the kids' tax bracket, unless those kids turn out to be millionaires themselves already.

There is SUPPOSED to be $90 trillion (with a T) in accumulated boomer wealth hanging low in their children's benefit. Now everyone is about to discover why our parents rolled their eyes on April 15th, and why they never wanted to go to a nursing home.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Boomers at 80: The dark reason the great wealth transfer may never arrive

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dancingtongue · 80-89, M

MSN says our moms and dads let us down). Despite decades of saving and mortgage payments, we (the kids) aren't likely to inherit much.

1. Why do we owe you anything? We raised you, educated you, with the intention that you become self-sufficient and begin planning for your own retirement.
2. My wife and I planned ahead to be able to support our own selves in retirement, and our health needs. We did not want to be a burden to our children. She made it all the way. I'm almost there.
3. I do have a little experience from taking care of my mother in her final days. She was fairly able to manage financially up through living in senior care, and with our help when she needed a care giver. When she had to go into full blown nursing home care, she needed to divest herself of her income property in order to qualify for Medicaid. We bought the property from her--it's part of my income flow now--and once she had used up the proceeds of that sale, Medicaid took over.
4. As for my kids, all my property is in a Trust Fund for them if it doesn't become necessary to use it to fund my last health care needs. They automatically become the trustees on my death. No probate. They can work out the taxes. Both have made their own "forever plans" with no expectations of moving into this place, which isn't the house the grew up in anyway. We downsized when we became empty nesters.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@dancingtongue interesting reply.

todays boomers don't realize they stood on the shoulders of giants: Parents who toiled through the great depression, lived in homes with outhouses and wells, and chopped wood to provide heat.

each generation is supposed to help make a better life for the next.

in theory.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@SusanInFlorida

Parents who toiled through the great depression, lived in homes with outhouses and wells, and chopped wood to provide heat.

I don't pretend to have lived, let alone toiled, through the Great Depression, as I only caught the tail end of it. But all the rest is true, The wood was not just for heat; my mother cooked on a wood burning stove as well. Well, wood when my father was around. Otherwise she frequently gathered dried cow flops and used them for fuel.

exchrist · 36-40

Our family has put everything in trust with equal shares held by all three children. The plan is to care for all family members at home for as long as possible. Careful budgeting and travel nurses are unlikely to be necessary but family friends and other supports were planned for. Most of our family friends have similar arrangements with their elders too.

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exchrist · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida I agree very complicated issue
In response
1. Hospitals have become primary care nursing homes in many ways. Only in maintaining full occupancy can the ever increasing salary of administrators be paid. It’s almost oligarchy in a way.
2. US is all about “runaway capitalism” profit without sustainable future outcomes. Yes European models of universal university degrees would be helpful. Also I maintain including at least 12 college credits toward a career path during high school would help alleviate the financial burden.
3. The death of a tenant in a nursing home often involves that inhabitants’ life insurance being claimed by the nursing home. I’m sorry but the entire system is a Paul robbed Mary to pay Peter scheme.
Welcome to capitalism in American “end life” care.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist mostly agree.

i read an interesting article last year. it theorized that corporate SHAREHOLDERs are the problem. Their relentless pursuit of short term profits. This supposedly distracts corporate management from long term planning.

however, shareholders don't seem to deter pharmaceutical companies, automakers, and energy producers from having a long term plan and sticking to it.

exchrist · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida we needboversight and a flat tax on all profits beyond a certain threshold would solve a lot of problems too. Americas got bills

jackjjackson · M

There are great tax avoidance strategies to move into the parents home and get a stepper up cost basis even while parents are living. Likewise there are great nursing ho e strategies not involving expensive long term care insurance. If planned correctly virtually no taxation.

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Crazywaterspring · 61-69, M

@SusanInFlorida "Tax strategies" are usually constructed to benefit the already well off. Stuff like putting assets in a trust. Most don't have enough to benefit from that.

jackjjackson · M

Sure. Nursing home? Owning her house? Both? @SusanInFlorida

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@jackjjackson nursing home. i don't want to move back to pennsylvania

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