>> Hello everyone and welcome to our ABLE National Resources Center Webinar on ABLE Best Practices and Action Steps for Family Members and Supporters, also known as, Circle of Support. My name is Miranda Kennedy and I'm the Director of the ABLE National Resources Center, and I'm so pleased to have all of you joining us here today. Let's go to the next slide.

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We would like to think our sponsors for today, for this week of our month long ABLE to Save Campaign, our sponsor is TIAA and we will be talking more about them towards the end of our webinar today. And before we get started, I'd like to go ahead and hand things over to my colleague, Al Meliotto [phonetic], who's going to be running through a few logistical details about today's webinar. Al?

>> Thanks, Miranda. Listening to the webinar; the audio for today's meeting can be accessed using computer audio or by calling in by phone. If you select computer audio, please make sure your speakers are turned on or headphones are plugged in. If you do not have sound capabilities on your computer or prefer to listen by phone, you can dial in to 1-929-205-6099, the meeting code is 613719250. Captioning; real-time captioning is provided during this webinar. The captions can be found by clicking on the closed caption icon in your Zoom controls at the bottom of the screen. If you do not see the captions after clicking the button, you can alright us via the chat box, and you can also view captions in your browser at the following website address; streamtext.net/player?Event=NDI. Submitting questions; please use the Q and A bot to submit any questions you have during the webinar. We will try our best to get to any and all questions. If your question is not answered during the webinar or you're listening by phone and not logged in, please visit us at www.ablenrc.org. Technical assistance; if you experience any technical difficulties during the webinar, please use the chat box. You can send me a message that way, or you can email me directly and my email address is amilioto@able.nrc.org. Please note, the webinar's being recorded and the materials will be placed on the ABLE National Resource Center website, along with all of our other ABLE webinars, at www.ablenrc.org/resources/webinars. And with that, I will throw things back over to Miranda Kennedy.

>> Great, thank you so much, Al. Again I'm so glad I'm here with you, my name is Miranda Kennedy and I'm the Director of the ABLE National Resource Center. I'm joined today on our webinar by my colleague, Marlene Ulisky, who is a manager of financial empowerment at the National Disability Institute, our parent organization, and works with us closely here at the ABLE National Resource Center as a subject matter expert on ABLE accounts and public benefits. We're in great hands with Marlene. We also have with us today, among our 2019 ABLE National Resource Center Ambassadors who are also ABLE account owners and family members; we have Davinna Christian, who is a parent of an ABLE account owner, Taylor Carty, who is a student and working age ABLE account owner, and Amy Tessler, who is a parent of an ABLE account owner. And we're going to be hearing from each of them during today's webinar, and hearing their insights and their experiences. So let's go to the next slide. Our agenda today is; we're going to be talking about what is ABLE to Save month? Critically reviewing what that is. And then diving into using and tracking qualified disability expenses, funding an ABLE account, talking about ABLE account, special needs trusts and pooled trusts and sharing some great resources on that, as well as best practices and next steps and resources. And I want to give you all a tip right now, if you didn't download or print today's PowerPoint when you came in, I know my colleague Laurie, who will be providing us support in the Q and A and the chat, and thank you so much Laurie for that help, she can go ahead and post where you can find the PowerPoint for today and you can save that because a quick tip, the information that we're going to be covering, hopefully you won't have to take too many notes, because we've been very explicit and we have broken all of the PowerPoint rules folks. A lot of information is on these slides. We hope we've organized them in a way that's really meaningful and helpful to you, but hopefully you don't have to take too many notes and we have a lot of great resources on those slides too. So Marlene and I are going to be going through that at a fairly fast clip, we'll be covering the information that is on those slides for you and then we want to get to hearing those account owners and their stories and their experiences, which we will be getting through throughout. So let's go to the next slide. With that, what is ABLE to Save month? If you're just now joining us, we're about at the halfway point, let's go to the next slide. ABLE to Save month is a nationwide grassroots campaign that's taking place throughout the month of August. The goal is to provide information about achieving a better life experience, otherwise known as ABLE accounts, so that individuals with disabilities and their families, those of you who are here with us today can become more knowledgeable and comfortable in opening an account through the state program of your choice. This year we promoted our ABLE to Save video contest in the month of July as part of our national campaign, and our winners will be announced at the end of the month. And we're going to be hearing their ABLE goals and the top three are going to receive cash prizes in their ABLE accounts to help them achieve their ABLE goal. And we'll be doing that on the final Thursday of the month. So the next slide talks about, we are having those weekly webinars, every Thursday this month, from 2:00 to 3:00 Eastern, we're providing ABLE information and resources to target audiences. Today is for family members and supporters of ABLE account owners and eligible individuals, but we're doing different target audiences throughout the month and this also includes eligible individuals who receive benefits along with those who do not receive benefits. And of course, those of you who are here with us today. Our upcoming two webinars on August 22, we have our ABLE Best Practices for Working Age Adults, and we have a link there to register if you haven't already, and on August 29, as I mentioned before, we'll be celebrating all the ways that you are ABLE and announcing our winners from our ABLE to Save video contest. All webinars are posted to our website within one week of broadcast and can be accessed there, and we're also spreading the word about our campaign via Twitter and Facebook to maximize our nationwide reach of this campaign. I appreciate your support in helping us spread the word. So with that, I'm going to hand things over to Marlene if we go to the next solid, and she's going to go ahead and get us started with talking about qualified disability expense distributions, using and tracking funds. Marlene?

>> Okay, thanks Miranda. And on the next slide, qualified disability expense are identified in section 529A of the Internal Revenue Tax Code, and the IRS is the entity, or the federal organization that has actually defined them in their notice of proposed law making. And there're expenses for items or services that either maintain or improve the health, independence, or the quality of life of a person with a disability. Money withdrawn from an ABLE account is called a distribution, you'll hear us talk about that throughout the presentation, and that money can be used to pay for any items or services that are shown on your screen. And before I go through that list, I just wanted to say, at this time we're awaiting the final regulations from the Internal Revenue Service, but until we do receive those, until those are issued, we can rely upon this notice of proposed law making until it's issued. Now, as you can see, the items and services fall into eleven very broad categories; they're education, housing, transportation, employment training and support, assistive technology and personal support services, health prevention and wellness, financial management and administrative services, legal fees, expenses for oversight and monitoring, funeral and burial expenses, and other expenses which the IRS may identify in regulation or policy. As an example of what I'm saying about the broad categories, I just want to take a meant and just say, if we look at the first one, education, and you think about what may fall into that category, it may include things like tuition, books, lab fees, supplies, transportation, or a laptop, and those are just examples of what may be a QDE in that particular category. So in the next slide, in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the IRS concluded that the term QDE, qualified disability expense, should be broadly understood and interpreted to include basic living expenses, and it should not be limited to expenses or items for which there is a medical necessity. And what that means is, if a medical provider recommends an item or a service, that is less likely or not likely to be questioned. Or expenses which provide no benefits to others, outside of the benefit to the eligible individual. For example, a modified vehicle, it may be purchased for transportation by an individual with a disability, but other members of the family may also use that vehicle. I also want to clarify, also when I'm referring to basic living expenses, and I didn't include this in this slide but maybe I should have, that at this point in time, I'm not including food as a basic living expense because it really is a gray area in some instances. There are exceptions in policy to everything and if you're a person who needs special foods due to a medical condition, I would be comfortable with saying that that may be a qualified disability expense, but in general I'm saying that food isn't a qualified disability expense and I'm saying that because, for those of you who have been listening to us regularly, you'll hear us talk about supplemental security incomes, and about beneficiaries having to pay their share of food and shelter expenses or their SSI payment could be reduced for in kind support and maintenance. So that's my thinking behind all of this in reading the notice of proposed law making. Now neither the law or the proposed regulations include disability related in front of the list of QDEs and that suggests that expenses like education or transportation, or housing, should be permitted distributions either with or without a disability. And the example shown on your screen, it actually was in the IRS notice of proposed rulemaking, it was included. The example is a smart phone if it's a safe and effective means of communication or navigation for a child with autism. Now Miranda, can you take us just a little further or a step further and tell us a little bit about the QDEs, some of the nuts and bolts, like does the expense have to be approved? How are withdrawal's made? How about if someone isn't sure if they used their funds appropriately and they used it for maybe on non-qualified disability expense. And Miranda?

>> Yes, thank you Marlene. If we can go to the next slide, let's do talk about those qualified disability distributions, or QDEs, as you'll hear us describe them. So a distribution is a withdrawal or disbursement of funds from an ABLE account. That's what that word means, distribution, when we use that. And distributions may only be made by the account holder or by the authorized legal representative, also known as ALR, for that acronym, if one has been designated. So examples of an authorized legal representative might be some of you here on this call with us, it could include a parent, a legal guardian, or someone who has power of attorney privileges. So those distributions, they can be made in a variety of ways, from your state ABLE program, examples include through a debit card, an electronic transfer, a check or by completing a form for withdrawal of funds. Now note that you can either request a check or some ABLE programs provide a set of checks that you can use. Distributions for qualified disability expenses do not need approval. But you must maintain records for your expenditures and retain documentation. And this is needed in case of federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, asks you to verify a purchase so you're going to want to track those records. So let's go to the next slide and talk about non-qualified disability expense distributions, because we know you probably have some questions about that and we have some information for you here on the next few slides that we think will help. So, using funds for a non-qualified distribution expense may result in paying income tax on the earnings portion of the distribution plus an additional 10% tax on those funds. And we've provided the link here to the IRS form 5329, to figure that tax. This is a great tool to use, so check out that link. If the distribution is spent within the month of its receipt, there's no effect on supplemental security eligibility, that SSI eligibility. The distribution is not counted as income by SSI even if it is for a non-qualified purpose. A distribution for non QDE or for housing, or housing related expense, is counted as a resource if it is retained or held outside of the ABLE account beyond the month of distribution, okay? So retained or held outside of the ABLE account, beyond the month of distribution. That's a really important distinction. So let's go to the next slide and give an example here. This is our tax example for a non-qualified disability expense. So if, this is a very simplified example of a taxation in this example, let's assume that the non QDE is property taxes that are paid on a piece of property that's owned by a friend. That would be something, like that, that would not be a QDE. So taking into account that premise, if you have $5500 as an ABLE balance, which would be a $5000 deposit into the account plus let's say $500 in earnings on the ABLE account through the investment piece, let's make that assumption that that $500 again, was spent on a non-qualified disability expense, because it went to pay for property taxes for a friend, the IRS penalty for that would, as we mentioned before, be that 10% tax on the earning portion of the non QDE, just on that $500, not the $5500, and that would come to $50. So $50 would be the taxable income and the tax on it depends on your tax bracket, but an example of that would be if you were in the 15% tax bracket, the additional law would make that $50 times 15% are $7.50, so the total tax in this example, on the $500 non-qualified disability expense, would be $57.50 and the amount of the non QDE, the amount of the ABLE earnings attributable to the non QDE in your tax bracket, all of that goes into determining your additional tax. So this example just used that 15% tax bracket, the link we provided on the previous solid. That's going to be a really great tool for you to use, because you might not be in that bracket. But this gives you a sense of the impact of the penalty on a non-qualified disability expense and what that would really look like in concrete terms. We felt this was important to share with all of you. So if you have more questions about QDE, a great strategy is to reach out to a Circle of Support or others and let's go to the next slide and take a look at that. Because many people do feel, you know, there's some confusion or they could have some difficulty in understanding qualified disability expenses, how to manage money, and how to track those qualified disability expenses. And to get help with that, you might consider accessing a circle of support. We also have very comprehensive qualified disability expense webinar archived on our website from last December, so that's another resource as well. But this Circle of Support, as you're looking into and diving into those QDEs and those questions around that, the Circle of Support is all you who are joining us here today. That would be a group of people who are committed to helping that ABLE account owner to achieve a better future and meet their goals. And the circle can be small or large or anywhere in between. You can have anyone who the individual knows well can support them, that could be a family member, a parent, a sibling, a representative payee, friend, professional clergy, employer or others. And when building that circle, the most important thing to know about that is trust. And also of course, to be cautious when sharing financial information with individuals that someone may not know well, be able to count on or may not know well, or those who maybe you've only known for a short time. These are things important to consider. So let's go ahead and go to the next slide, and meet our ABLE account owner, Dushon Christian's mom, Davinna. And we're going to hear some of Dushon's story from Davinna and I want you to know, in introducing Davinna and Dushon, that Dushon is 20 now and just graduated from high school in June of this year. Everyone see the picture on the screen of Dushon's graduation announcement with him smiling in his cap and gown, and details of how family and friends can contribute using the link to his ABLE account on his announcement, which is a clever strategy to access that circle of support right? But Dushon's ABLE goals are for a communications device, for durable medical equipment, and also for an accessible vehicle. These are some of Dushon's short-term goals here. And I have some questions for Davinna, who we know is here with us. So, Davinna, the first question I have for you is, you're your son's biggest supporter, can you tell us, as a parent and the lead on Dushon's circle of support, how you support Dushon's decisions and how his ABLE account will get him to where he wants to be?

>> Hello, Miranda, so I support Dushon's decisions because we talk about what our goals are and we talk about our goals on a monthly basis, just in case there's has to be some type of change made to the goals. So, our goals have remained the same since our account opened, and which is good for us because we change our mind a lot. So our goals have remained the same. So on a monthly basis, not only do we discuss our goals, we discuss how we're going to try to meet our goals. And there's a lot of different ways out there to meet goals, there's a lot of ways that you can expand your ABLE account knowledge with people, and so that's what we've been in the process of doing. His graduation announcement was one of the best ideas that was presented to me. It was a way to expand our circle, okay course we have immediate family that helps us on a regular basis, but with me putting it on his graduation announcement, allowed it to go out to distant relatives, and close friends, who knew what our goals were but didn't know how they could help us reach our goals.

>> Well, and towards that end, Davinna, can you talk about who all else is in Dushon's circle of support? You mentioned there's a lot of people in your lives, but who do you consider is in his circle of support? And can you tell us, the audience here today, if you ever disagree on decisions and what you do in those instances?

>> So, our circle of support, our immediate circle of support, and I'll explain that in a second, is he has two grandmas, he has five aunts, that contribute to his care regularly. So that's our immediate circle of support. And before the graduation announcement went out, I assumed that was our only circle of support, but as I said, when I sent out the graduation announcements, I started receiving phone calls and text messages and even at the graduation party, so many people came up to me that day, cousins and therapists, and just friends of the family, was coming up to me to say, we didn't know that this was your goal and this is what you were trying to do, because we could have found ways to help you as well. So when you say circle of support, I'm going to say for every person they have an immediate circle of support, which will be probably your very close family members, grandmas, uncles, aunts, but then you have an extended circle of support who might be cousins or great-grandparents, or just close friends of the family, that are willing to help you as well. So that is a circle of support. As far as making decisions, Dushon is nonverbal, however, he is cognitively all there, so he understands everything that's said to him, he just doesn't have a way to answer right now with more than a yes or no. So, basically if something comes up, Dushon and I have a discussion, I basically tell him what's going on, and then I tell him the pros and cons from what I see, and I, 99.8% of the time, allow him to make the decision. Is this something we want to do? Is it something we want to change? And he'll indicate yes or no. If it's a decision that I agree on because I, you know, we've discussed it and it's something that's rational, then he makes the decision. If it's a, if it's a decision he makes that I kind of question, I always bring my thoughts to him, and I tell him things about it, and we discuss it later. It's only been very few times that I've had to override his decision because I'm Mom and because I'm the legal guardian, and because no, we're not going to use ABLE funds to go to the mall. And that has only happened like once or twice since we've had an ABLE account. Other than that, we, he pretty much stays on target with what he wants, because these are things that he wants.

>> Alright, you know I think that's a really helpful distinction and also, you really point to, you know, clarifying what is a qualified disability expense, right? With that trip to the mall that you referenced, right?

>> Right.

>> Also I mean, we all need to keep in mind, okay, what does qualify, what doesn't? You know, you want to stay in the realm of okay, we're definitely on the right side of this. As Marlene mentioned earlier with her food example, right Davinna?

>> Yes.

>> Okay, well that's, thank you so much for sharing that, I do have another question for you. We have a final question for Davinna, but in past webinars we've learned about saving for an accessible vehicle, and we learned on the past few slides about qualified disability expenses and how a QDE may be something broadly understood that could be a benefit not only to the ABLE account holder, but to others. So once you get the accessible vehicle, which is our third bullet point here, our goal, can you tell me who will use it and how you plan to use it? Will, for instance, is this not only medical treatment but activities that enhance Dushon's independence?

>> So, the wheelchair accessible vehicle will be used of course for medical appointments. Dushon will be the primary user. I will be the primary chauffeur because, you know, Mom has to do all the driving of course. So he'll be the primary user, and it will be primarily for medical appointments, however, Dushon leads a very active life outside of the doctor, so he's on a Miracle League Baseball and Bowling team, it'll be used for that, it'll be used to transport him to family dinners, it'll be used if we have to make an out of town trip or wherever we need to go, that's what the vehicle will be primarily used for. But, for me, it, I don't plan on purchasing a separate vehicle just for me. I don't know if that makes sense but once he has a wheelchair accessible vehicle, I'm not going to go out and purchase a vehicle just for my personal use when he's not with me because the times that he's not with me is very far and few between, so it'll be primarily for him but if I need to run to the store to pick up a few items, I plan on using the vehicle for that as well.

>> Right, and thank you for clarifying that because I think that is one of the pieces we talk about as well. It doesn't have to be entirely and solely for the benefit of the individual. It can also benefit others and you gave a really good example of that, Davinna, thank you. You know, one thing also to think about, is that when that van is purchased and modified, a suggestion would be to think about applying for a loan, if needed, through the alternative loan program in your state to save significant interest on payments, and a website to check out alternative loan programs is www.at3center.net. So, so that's something else to consider as well. Thank you so much, Davinna, for sharing your story and Dushon's story and we certainly look forward to getting those updates from you. And appreciate your insight as well into the circle of support. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Marlene to cover a few slides on best practices in terms of qualified disability expenses. Let's get into that a little bit more here and provide some very good, very specific examples and then also give you all a checklist of things to consider. So we're putting it all out there for you. So Marlene, go ahead and take it away.

>> Okay, thanks Miranda, and I hope I won't break up too much, we're having a storm out there and it just started, it seems like every afternoon here in the southeast we have these storms and hopefully it doesn't affect my audio. And let's talk first about best practices for qualified disability expenses and on your screen you'll see about five bullet points about some of the best practices we recommend at the ABLE National Resource Center. One of them is to make responsible decisions about qualified disability expenses and to exercise good judgment. You may need to consult your circle of support, if you're unsure about making some decisions or someone just asked a question in the chat box about whether or not it may be appropriate, or could I explain further about financial management services and what that might entail. And for something like that, in making responsible decisions, you may need to pay someone to, if something gets to be very completion or something's real technical, maybe you would need to pay or consult with a financial planner or a CPA, attorney, when you need advice involving a completion manner and they could help you to make decisions. But something like that may, use ABLE [inaudible] or services which clearly [inaudible] within one of the QDE categories but, the eleven broad categories we talked about on a prior slide. Those recommended by healthcare provider and again we're saying that because those are least likely to ever be questioned or those which most people would view as a basic living expense, again with the exception of food.

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So that's in most cases. Always ask yourself whether that [inaudible] improve your health, your [inaudible] or your quality of life [inaudible] talked about earlier, to use ABLE funds in [inaudible] health expenses should be handled by automatic debits from the ABLE account [inaudible] possible. And that said, that it doesn't impact resources. On the next slide, going to talk a little bit about some record keeping and [inaudible] keep records. The ABLE account owner must always be prepared to show how they spent withdrawals from the ABLE account, from the Internal Revenue Service or perhaps from Social Security, and to prove that the expenditures were for qualified disability expenses if asked. It's critical that the ABLE accounts are always maintained good records for all distributions, save receipts for any purchases. SI recipients, timing withdrawals for housing or housing related expenses, again it's critical so that it does not count against resources and lastly, I just wanted to say that the state ABLE programs do share data with the Social Security Administration on a regular monthly bases, under a data exchange program. And that's not unusual, a lot of programs do share information with the federal government and vice versa, so on the next slide there's a checklist that you can see, there's seven things to consider; the first is have you investigated all potential no-cost funding sources before considering using ABLE funds for services or support, and what I'm talking about there is no-cost funding such as vocational rehabilitation, financial aid, HUD Section 8 [inaudible] assistance, low income [inaudible] energy, assistive technology programs through the school or through an employer. The second is, do you have a special needs trust and does it currently pay for your rent? If it does and your means tested benefit is reduced due to the payment, you may want to discuss this with a trustee and ask him or her about transferring those rental funds to the ABLE account and your rent from the ABLE account. The third is the expense something the your current benefit payment can fund? If so, it's wise to pay the expense from your benefits versus from your ABLE account, remember that ABLE account does grow tax free. The fourth is can you set up automatic debits to pay for recurring expenses? The fifth, have you retained the receipts for the qualified disability expense. We always said that record keeping is critical in case something's questioned. Under ordinary circumstances I actually would not anticipate something like that happening, but there always is a chance of an audit occurring. Do you need help with record keeping, and again, that's where a circle of support may come in very handy. And if you retain the disbursement beyond the month of withdrawal, what are you retaining it for? And will it have impact upon your benefits? So Miranda, with that I think we provided an awful lot to information, there's a lot to consider, and I think that this checklist could probably be expanded a little. So I'm going to turn it back over to you to talk to another one of our ABLE Ambassadors, Miranda?

>> Great, thank you so much Marlene. Yes, let's do turn it over, I think now's a good time to get some insights to an ABLE account owner. Our ABLE National Resource Center Ambassador, Taylor Carty. Taylor's a young woman in her early 20's, she is applying to medical school next year, so she's using her ABLE goals towards saving towards medical school tuition, long-term to save for a house, comfortable retirement, and also of course, saving for those emergencies that come up. She's a very savvy young woman, she scored a 92% on the MCAT so that's impressive. But let's go ahead and hear from Taylor on her own experience as well as her experience with her, about the checklist and thoughts on that as well as with her circle of support and how she interacts with them. So Taylor, my first question for you is, you've heard some of the items on the checklist of things to consider and the best practices and wondering, can you share anything else we may not have talked about, with those listening today, that you think might help them, from your own personal experience or with others you've interacted with as you've talked about and been part of utilizing this ABLE account. And we see of course, those pictures on the screen of Taylor with her circle of support I want to mention. Her siblings and her mom and her dad, so Taylor? Can you let us know about those other best practices that you and your circle of support might be using?

>> [inaudible]

>> If you could be a little closer to the mic?

>> Better?

>> Yes, so much, thank you.

>> Okay, great, well specifically like with me and my family, one thing I would add for everyone to consider is like, just what was emphasized actually in the last webinar, is to like consider what your goal is, whether it's short-term or long-term because like, that way you can make a plan like in terms of your ABLE account funds and whether you wanted to let it grow more or just be, or have it more for the short-term, and if your state has a use [inaudible] card. In terms of my family and my support system, I think it's really important to have, because especially if you are kind of young, if you are say in your late teens or early 20 or you're just about to [inaudible] town, I mean you want that circle of support because you're relatively young and they have that experience. I mean, you're just starting out and you don't know a lot about supposedly your finance, I mean you're living with your parents and they're doing your cooking and laundry and whatever it may be and you just don't know what questions to ask and having that circle of support, they can help you with that and they also have connections which is really important. So something that they might not know, other people will know and other agencies might know, which I think is really helpful.

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>> And Taylor, thank you so much because I think it's really important to hear that feedback from someone who is young and starting off and using your circle of support as you are. And thank you for adding that piece, we certainly look forward to following along with your journey as you live into those ABLE goals. So let's, now that we have met Taylor and heard some from her, let's go ahead and move forward and talk about identifying some potential sources of income for an ABLE account. If we can go to the next slide. And the slide after that. Thank you. So I'm going to get started with this and then I'm going to let Marlene dive into some of the details, but just overall I think you're probably starting to pick up what we're putting down from our earlier parts of this presentation, but in terms of identifying potential sources of income for an ABLE account, anyone can make a contribution into an ABLE account, this is very broad and very wide. So the individual with a disability themselves can make a contribution into the ABLE account, their family, friends, an employer, a special needs trust can make a contribution into an ABLE account, pooled trusts, estates or others. You can't put a horse or property into your ABLE account but funds you can. And these are the individuals and the entities that can put funds into an ABLE account. The total annual contribution limit currently that cannot exceed the federal gift tax contribution limit, that's $15, 000 right now, that's where that stands right now. The other thing to think about is an employed individual with a disability may be ABLE to contribute more, and there's a lot of details around that and we're going to save that for next week's webinar and we hope you'll register, the link to register is right here on this slide, the hyperlink for that, for our next in our ABLE to Save webinar series for next Thursday at 2:00 for our Best Practices for Working Age Adults. We're going to be talking about how employed individuals with a disability can contribute more into an ABLE account when those instances are and detail from around that. The total lifetime contributions for into an ABLE account cannot exceed the state limit, whichever state your ABLE program is in, for a 529 college savings account. So state programs aggregate contributions range from $100,000 to $529,000. Now that's the contribution range, there's more details beyond the contribution range and how that can grow beyond that, but in terms of your contributions, that's the limit for contributions, not for growth. So that's an important key factor. I think you'll agree with that, Marlene? I'm going to hand it over to you to talk about party contributions, but go ahead and validate that I just said that correctly.

>> That is correct, yes.

>> Okay. Good.

>> Okay.

>> So let's go ahead and hear about third party contributions from you Marlene, I'm going to hand it over to you.

>> Okay, what this slide is saying is that third party contributions are contributions made by someone other than the designated beneficiary or the account holder with funds that do not belong to them or are not otherwise due to that designated beneficiary or that account holder and that's a real, real important distinction. And we'll talk about that a little more in future slides. A special needs trust, it is defined as a third party under IRS policy, it's defined as a person and a special needs trust actually can contribute to enabled accounts. Examples of third party contributions include and you can see the listing on your screen, I won't read all of them but it could be contributions by family members and Davinna talked about that, or friends, contributions by an employer, it could be a 529 education rollover from a family member's ABLE account, or from that individual 529 college savings program and so on. On the next slide. Beneficiary contributions, we'll talk about those, and a beneficiary contributes earnings or other income into the ABLE account, there's no change in the way income's counted and that's really, really important, when you have someone we talked about on the prior slide, a third party contributing money into the ABLE account, that does not count as income to the account holder but [inaudible] always has [inaudible] real important because some folks write into the center and they believe that because they're depositing money into an ABLE account from earnings, it's not counted and that's not true. So, examples of payments that might be deposited into an ABLE account, but they still count as income and that's money payable to the account holder and that can include the earnings we just talked about. But it could include other income too whether it's directly deposited into the ABLE account or not directly deposited, still counts the same. And that other income, as you can see on your screen, for examples of unearned income. It could be alimony payments, child support payments, annuities, or veteran's administration compensation. On the next slide, a huge step forward with saving and means tested benefits in particular is the fact that the first $100,000 in an ABLE account, in ABLE savings, is totally disregarded when determining eligibility from most means tested benefits, and that's huge. Now there is an exception and that's for supplement security income benefits only. If you receive SSI when the account balance exceeds $100,000, either [inaudible] or in combination with your other resources, the SSI payment is temporarily suspended. Now when that happens, Medicaid will still continue even when that [inaudible] exceeds $100,000. So it's only the SSI payment which would be suspended, and the SSI benefit may be reinstated at any time. As long [inaudible] $100,000 either alone or in combination with other resources, what I'm saying is the amount over $100,000, when you add that other regular savings account or regular checking account, or any other resources you have, when it exceeds the limit, then there is a suspension of that SSI benefit. Now if non ABLE resources alone are over the SSI limit, and for most individuals [inaudible] adult, $3000 for a couple when both individuals receive supplemental security income, so if non ABLE resources are over that, the special suspension rule does not apply. Social security has other rules in place where a benefit actually would be suspended but there are other rules with regards to reinstatements. There is no resource limit, if you receive benefits under SSDI, and that's real important. A lot of folks, they write into the center and they ask us that question. There's no resource limit because for folks receiving SSDI, they've paid into the system, they've paid taxes and that's why they're receiving that particular benefit. So on the next slide, let's talk about some contribution best practices. There are four as shown on your screen, number one is to make regular systematic deposits into your ABLE account, remember that account grows tax free, we recommend using automatic methods, either electronic funds transfer or payroll deductions. With these methods, it's easy, and I think you're less tempted to spend the money versus save it. As Davinna said a little bit earlier, invite friends, family and employer to contribute to your ABLE account, sometimes they don't know what you're goal is, but once they hear what your goal is, they're so enthusiastic about it, they're more apt to contribute to your account. And also remember that a special needs trust can also contribute to your account and the contributions by any of those do not count as income by means tested benefit programs. And lastly, do your homework, your contributions to an ABLE account are not taxable for federal income tax purposes, and there may be a state income tax deduction available for you depending upon where you live and where you've established your account. So research your state. On the next slide, ABLE accounts, special needs trusts, and pooled trusts. On the next slide, okay, on this one we're just giving you a little bit of background on trusts. A trust is a legal agreement, it's regulated by state or tribal law, where one party holds property for the benefit of another. Trusts may contain cash, but they may contain other liquid assets and real or personal property. An ABLE account is not a trust. Public benefits are limited and may not cover all of the expenses for a person with a disability so a special needs trust or a pooled trust may be used to cover supplemental needs. The trust could be funded by a person with a disability or by a third party, it may be pooled and it may contain the funds of several individuals so the costs are lower. A special needs first or a pooled trust and an ABLE account are both financial planning tools and they're used for different purposes. They can complement one another and the individual financial situation and their circumstances actually will determine which option or whether both options are most beneficial. On the next solid, I also wanted to mention back in January we did do one entire webinar for an hour and a half, on special needs trusts and ABLE accounts, so you may want to go to our website and tune into that, it is archived or saved on our website. On this one, supplemental security income and trusts [inaudible] and they may or may not be counted as a resource for supplemental security income or other means tested benefits depending on a variety of factors. Money paid directly to a beneficiary from a trust reduces SSI benefits, money paid directly from the trust to someone to provide the beneficiary with food or shelter reduces the SSI benefits up to 1/3, for SSI shelter items just, it could include things like rent or mortgage, property taxes, heating, fuel, and so on. All of those expenses are defined on our website if you'd like to see those. Money paid from a trust directly to someone else to provide items other than food and shelter does not reduce SSI benefits, so examples of that would be medical care, educational expenses, telephone bills, entertainment and so on. And the special needs trust or a pooled trust which is not counted as a resource, may contribute to an ABLE account as a third party, and the contributions do not count as income by the SSI program or other means tested federal benefit program. So with that, Miranda, I think we've gone through an awful lot of information today, so I'm going to turn it back to you and I think you're going to talk to another ABLE account owner.

>> Why yes I am, thank you Marlene. We're going to be meeting now next, our final ABLE account owner, Scott Tessler's mom, Amy Tessler, who's here with us today and she's going to be sharing the Tessler family story. We're going to be hearing Scott's ABLE story as well, and Amy, you and your husband have set up both a special needs trust and an ABLE account for your son, Scott, who is 23 and who is on the autism spectrum. Everyone can see Scott here with you and his dad, on the far right in a picture from his interview day as well, at the job that he's now working at the Double Tree, a job that he got through Project SEARCH. And we know that Scott's ABLE goals are to augment his special needs trust to maximize means tested benefits, that SSI benefit that he's on, as well as to achieve some degree of financial independence into the future, which is very important. So I've got two questions for you Amy, because you're actually in a really unique role with a real unique background, not just as Scott's mom, and navigating both an ABLE account and a special needs trust, but also, you work for the Dale Law Firm as an outreach specialist with Stephen Dale, who's a subject matter expert on special needs trusts, that we work with and folks can hear from him on the webinar that Marlene just referenced from January, that we did on ABLE accounts and special needs trusts. So, he's been around for a long time and on ABLE accounts, which are much newer, so that's really, special needs trust has been around for a great long time, and ABLE accounts are a lot newer to the work that we're doing here. Can you speak to what, in your opinion, how has ABLE accounts enhanced special needs trusts?

>> Okay, hi everyone. We set up a special needs trust for Scott way before ABLE accounts even existed. Scott's grandparents were setting up 529 accounts for their grandchildren and we had a pretty good knowledge at that time, that college was not a likely option for Scott, but they wanted to provide for him as well. So, the only choice at that point in time was a special needs trust. Even today, we would need to set up a special needs trust and Scott received a gift of over $15,000. ABLE accounts are great, especially for those who can only save $15,000 a year or less. It does not require going to an attorney, putting out a lot of money to set up a special needs trust. So, I'm a big proponent of ABLE accounts. And also, if for the first time you can avoid getting penalized if your bank account goes over $2000. But, if you are fortunate enough to save more than $15,000 a year or get a large gift from someone, you still need a special needs trust or a pooled trust. The ABLE account for Scott does three things; it allows him to pay his full share of household expenses, so we can receive his maximum SSI payment every month, it allows him to pay for expenses using his debit card, which is tied to his ABLE account, and lastly, it allows for easy transfers to and from his bank account. Not so easy doing transfers from a special needs trust. It takes a lot more work. Without an ABLE account, we would have to make withdrawals from his special needs trust and that process is a lot more complicated. Transferring money between his ABLE account and his bank account can be done in a matter of seconds on the computer, and finally, the special needs trust will provide for Scott when my husband and I are no longer living.

>> Thank you, Amy, for giving some great insight into that. You know, some parents have had challenges in understanding the means tested benefits programs and you've actually helped them in your role, to navigate various systems. So do you have any advice to parents who either don't understand means tested benefits or any advice on how they can overcome some of the challenges they face?

>> Well, understanding means tested benefit programs is a huge challenge. I still don't quite get it. I've been attending workshops at transition fairs for over 10 years and still learning every time I go to a program about how SSI, SSDI, [inaudible], all these programs work. Now that Scott, and also now that Scott's working, the situation becomes even more complicated because there are numerous work incentive programs one needs to understand. My advice is to look for workshops or online programs or webinars which goes through these different programs. If you and also if you or your loved one is working, there is a publication call, The Red Book, which describes all the employment supports available for persons with disabilities. Another really good resource is DB101.org, which stands for Disability Benefits 101, where you can get tools and information on employment health coverage and benefits by state. This site also has links to other resources for help. Again, that's DB101.org. In many situations you are required to go to your local office, your local Social Security Office, in person to provide updated information. This is also quite challenging since, to be honest, not all representatives have the knowledge needed to correctly process the information. Always document a visit by asking for stamped copies of any materials you provide, and follow-up and make sure your information gets into the system. This is not always an easy task.

>> That's really helpful, good clear guidance and resources, thank you so much, Amy. We really appreciate it. So I'm going to turn things over to Marlene now to talk about Medicaid payback and also a checklist of things to consider in terms of an ABLE account or a special needs trust or both. So, Marlene?

>> Okay, thanks, Miranda. So let's talk a little bit about Medicaid payback, [inaudible] and some of the information is correct but some of it may not be correct. Upon the death of the account holder, qualified withdrawals from the ABLE account, they still can be made to pay for any outstanding qualified disability expenses and it can be made, withdrawals can be made for funeral and burial expenses. Now Medicaid, up to the amount [inaudible] by the Medicaid program from the time the account was opened. If the individual didn't receive Medicaid benefits at all during that time, then it's a non-issue. The state actually would have to file a claim for those funds because the payments or payback of those Medicaid funds and remaining funds would be transferred to the individual's estate. But I have to mention again, if you haven't received Medicaid, for Medicaid funded services and you don't anticipate [inaudible] payback is really not an issue or something that you need to consider. As a resource we placed on this slide, information that we have housed at the ABLE National Resource Center website, it's the Center for Medicaid [inaudible] the guidance letter which was issued to all states. I just had to use this letter 2 days ago for my family member who receives Medicaid waiver services because the program in this particular state, which I won't mention, they had never heard of this. So I used it, I sent it to the case worker and hopefully everything will be smooth sailing from here on in. I also wanted to mention on this slide, there are about 10 states thus far where the states have waived the Medicaid payback provision subject to the federal and the state probate tax laws for residents of those 10 states. If you'd like to see those 10 states or to find them, you can use the comparison tool on our ABLE National Resource Center site. On the next slide, the next slide, I'm not going to read this all, but for those of you who have printed this off or if you go back to our website [inaudible] available, it's a checklist of a lot of things to consider on ABLE accounts and special needs trusts, where the establishment of both. I also wanted to mention on this particular slide, that we do have a great resource on the ABLE National Resource Center website, it's a handout which compares both of these things and it contrasts them, it's really, really a great tool. We worked closely with a special needs [inaudible] and we all think that this is a great tool that many of you can use. So, I think, Miranda, with that I'm going to give it back to you for next steps, some best practices, and tie it up with some resources. So, Miranda?

>> Great, thank you so much, Marlene. Yeah, let's go ahead and take a look at the first of two slides where we have best practices if you are a supporter of an ABLE account owner, which we anticipate many of you are. So, first of all, help the ABLE account holder explore and prioritize savings and investment goals, clarify those ideas about the future and talk about those goals often to motivate the individual and to reinforce saving behavior. You know, I think we heard some great examples of that from Davinna and from Taylor in particular on today's discussion. And learn how to ask those probing questions regarding the ABLE account holder's goals, dreams, and aspirations, it might take coming back to those again. That's a continual conversation. Discover those resources and provide information to assist that ABLE account holder in achieving their goals. We hope we've provided some good resources and suggestions here today. We've got a resource slide at the end as well you'll want to check out. And of course, take the time that's necessary to talk about barriers, but when you're doing that, be positive. Work for solutions rather than staying embedded in a problem. On the next slide, our final few recommendations for best practices if you're a supporter of an ABLE account owner. Celebrate those achievements and progress, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. That really does, you know provide encouragement and can build enthusiasm and momentum, that's really important. And helping the individual in your life, the person who's that ABLE account holder, who you're a member of their circle of support, help them to find those available community resources that can provide the opportunity and services that are needed, and that will preserve ABLE funds for as long as possible so that they can go out further. Remember, of course, always, that the ABLE account owner themselves, they're the one in charge. They might need some of your assistance and advice and support, as Taylor mentioned, as Davinna mentioned, and Amy, in being supported in making those decisions and setting goals for what they want in life, but they're the one in charge. So do provide that assurance that you're there to help them as needed. Now on the next slide, I've got some great resources for you, just if you want to hear and learn some more stories including from Davinna, and Taylor, and Amy, who spoke today, we have actually 18 now, between last year's 9 and this year's 9, our ambassadors and our alumni. These are ABLE account owners, family members, or individuals themselves, and their stories. So we've provided their links here on our website, so go check those out. And you'll learn a little bit more as well and you can also see all their bright smiling faces on the screen which is nice to see as we're wrapping up here. So finally, on the next slide, we've got next steps. Really start with that goal, identify the short-term and long-term goals with known and anticipated qualified disability expenses when setting money aside in an ABLE account. Investigate costs and develop a short-term and long-term budget and a spending and savings plan. Always consider whether any other public benefit program can cover those costs. And consider other sources of income and how an ABLE account might interact or complement them. Are you earning income through employment? Are you receiving a cash benefit through SSI or SSDI? Do you have a special needs trust? There's a lot of different things in here, and everyone's circumstance is going to be unique and different, because we're all unique and different. But these are some things to keep in mind. And of course, knowing that goals are fluid because life is fluid. I love the, you know, in all of those longer term goals and short-term goals that Taylor had, I mean, it's very savvy, emergency fund, you know what, emergencies happen, it's great that she's got that down as an example. So goals are fluid, that's fine, they change based on time and situations and events, and just be prepared for that. So finally, as we're wrapping up here, do please help us to spread the word, well actually here we've got a list of resources. These are some great resources for you, we hope you'll take them forth, including information from our ABLE National Resources Center. The archive for that qualified disability expense fundamentals webinar that we have, that goes into a lot of detail about that, best practices there. There's that link to that comparison chart for that ABLE account special needs and pooled trusts document we've been talking about that we developed in collaboration from the ABLE National Resource Center, with our partners at the Special Needs Alliance. So we've heard feedback, it's very unbiased, side by side comparisons, so that could be really helpful to you. There's some links in terms of strategies to make smart financial decisions, building that circle of support, and of course, a range of strategies for funding an ABLE account. And our ABLE case summary series as well. So as we're wrapping up in our last couple minutes here, please do help us spread the word about ABLE during our grassroots, nationwide campaign this month. Share this information about ABLE accounts with your friends, your family, community groups, anyone who you think might benefit, you can receive up to date information on ABLE by subscribing to our AchievABLE Newsletter, which is available on our website, or connecting with us on social media, on Facebook or Twitter. And of course, please do participate in all of the ABLE to Save webinars with us, you can access the archived ones or the ones that are coming up on our website, ablenrc.org/resources/webinars, to stay informed. And additionally, we would like to finally wrap up on the final slide by thanking our, again, our ABLE to Save week sponsor for this week, TIAA. You can see their contact information here, founded more than 100 years ago, TIAA is committed to helping institutions and individuals pursue positive outcomes through an array of global, diversified financial services, and a long-term investment perspective. TIAA-CREF Tuition Financing, Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of TIAA, is a proud partner of the state of California and serves as the program manager for Cal ABLE and we appreciate their support and sponsorship this week. You can get information about them off of their website at www.tiaa.org, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter and you have that information there. And with that, we've gone just a little bit over, but we hope that we've given you some really good, rich information that you can take forward. Please do print off this PowerPoint and use these resources, and join us back here for more webinars at the ABLE National Resource Center. And with that, thank you everyone for joining us, and to our panelists and presenters today, we hope you have a lovely rest of your Thursday, thanks everyone.