Short Blogs

HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. HIPAA, as amended, protects your rights to your medical information, “Protected Health Information” or PHI, for short. HIPAA is to assure you access to your medical information, while simultaneously preventing others who should not have access to it from obtaining it….

Under HIPAA, the Health Insurance Accountability Act a medical provider that must address the HIPAA rules is referred to as a “Covered Entity”. This can include any organization (health plan, health care provider, or health clearing house) that routinely handles Protected Health Information, “PHI”, in any capacity is probably characterized as a “covered entity”. A…

To authorize a medical provider (Covered Entity) to release your personal health information (Protected Health Information or PHI)There are a number of specifics requirements to meet under the applicable law 45 CFR 164.508. The authorization should be in writing. It should describe the health info to be disclosed. This could be your entire medical record,…

The principal or assets of a trust can be referred to as “corpus” or “res”. In a total return or unitrust (uni-trust) the distributions are based on a percentage of corpus, e.g., 4% x principal each January 1.

This is also called the “spousal right of election”. It is a right given to a surviving spouse under state law to claim a specified minimum percentage of the late spouse’s estate. So if you die and leave your husband nothing under your will, he may have the right under state law to demand a…

See “Right of election”. This is a right given to a surviving spouse to claim a portion of the deceased spouse’s estate.

Code Section 71 (IRC Sec. 71) permits a deduction in determining your income tax for alimony payments you paid during the year. Generally, you must have a legally enforceable obligation to pay alimony to claim a tax deduction. Alimony payments must generally meet the requirements of Code Section 215 as well. They must end on…

Code Section 215 provides rules for the taxation of alimony payments. See the discussion under IRC Sec 71 (71 in the Glossary).

Unearned income is income that you did not generate from providing services. For example, interest and dividends are unearned income. This concept can be important for tax considerations like the Kiddie Tax (how income of children under 18, or 24 if full time students) is taxed. A child may avoid the Kiddie tax if their…

When a higher court to which a case has been appealed to sends the matter back to the lower court to address an issue it is said that the case is “remanded”.