Do I Have To Report Gift Money As Income To Ssdi
Call back Carefully Before Giving Gift Cards to an SSI Recipient
- Dec fourth, 2014
The holidays are here and most families are busy shopping for gifts for their loved ones. According to the National Retail Federation, gift cards are in one case over again expected to be the most pop gift given because they are easy to buy and they accept the guesswork out of shopping.
Unfortunately, although you may exist in the vacation spirit when buying a gift card for your loved ane, the Social Security Administration (SSA), which runs the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, is nearly certainly not. Nether SSI regulations, any dollar of unearned income received by an SSI beneficiary will reduce his SSI benefit by 1 dollar. This means that if an SSI recipient with a $500-a-month do good receives $500 in unearned income during the grade of 1 month (the number is actually a little higher due to a monthly income offset), he will lose his SSI do good, and, quite mayhap, the Medicaid coverage that often accompanies information technology. To make matters even more than complicated, the SSA defines unearned income equally "any item an individual receives in cash or in-kind that can exist used to run across his or her need for food or shelter."
Under current SSI regulations, any gift card that can be used to buy food or shelter, or that tin be resold, counts as income for purposes of SSI. Furthermore, if a beneficiary does not spend the entire card in the month in which she receives it, the remaining balance of the carte will count as the recipient'due south resource in the post-obit months, which can outcome in a termination of benefits if the bill of fare pushes the recipient over the $two,000 SSI resource limit. For example, let'south assume that Mary receives a $500 monthly SSI benefit and her mother gives her a $100 souvenir carte du jour for Christmas. If the card can be used to purchase food, then Mary'south SSI benefit volition drop to $400 for the month in which she received the card. Furthermore, if Mary does non use the souvenir card during that commencement month, information technology will count against her $ii,000 resource limit in the side by side month, and for any additional months that information technology remains unspent. So if Mary had $one,950 in the depository financial institution and the gift card is added to that coin, she will be over the resources limit and will lose her SSI benefits. The aforementioned matter would happen if Mary received a cash gift instead of a souvenir carte du jour.
The easiest way to avert this trouble is to not requite an SSI recipient a souvenir carte at all. Notwithstanding, gift cards that cannot be used to purchase food or shelter and that cannot be resold are okay. Because the SSA assumes that the bill of fare can be resold, you must be diligent in determining the store'southward exchange/refund policy for gift cards. It likewise pays to investigate what a store sells before buying the card, because seemingly innocent department stores may also sell food. If possible, information technology is much better to give an SSI beneficiary an actual concrete gift, like a sweater or a book, and if the SSI recipient is the beneficiary of a tertiary-party special needs trust, you can even give cash to the trust instead of giving information technology to the SSI recipient himself. (There is a complicated and very small exception to the gift-giving rules that you lot can larn most here - it may save $60 of income every iii months.)
The holidays are a time for families to get together and giving gifts during this flavor are a style for many families to limited their dear for one another. Gift giving should non be a source of stress for anyone, particularly an SSI recipient. If you take any questions about the all-time gifts to give and their effect on an SSI recipient, speak to your qualified special needs planner first.
Final Modified: 12/04/2014
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Source: https://specialneedsanswers.com/think-carefully-before-giving-gift-cards-to-an-ssi-recipient-12679
Posted by: olivermeas1955.blogspot.com
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