[thrive_headline_focus title=”Ten things to know about the 529A Account” orientation=”left”]
In the week leading up to Christmas 2014, the US Congress passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (the ABLE Act) , creating the 529A account to provide tax advantaged benefits for disabled individuals. It is a significant change to the financial planning landscape for special needs beneficiaries, with the potential for helping many families with disabled members.
The 529A plan is modeled after the Section 529 College Savings Plans, which are widely used for college planning. The 529A account is meant to allow tax advantaged accumulations and distributions for a wide range of expenses for the disabled beneficiary. The following lists some of the specifics, similarities, and differences that the 529A Account features:
1. The 529A Account uses the Social Security definition of disability. In addition it can benefit only people who have been diagnosed with a qualifying disability prior to age 26.
2. Like the 529 College Plans, the 529A plans will be set up on the state level. Presumably, the same state agencies that oversee the 529 College Plans will be responsible for the 529A, although that may differ from state to state.
3. There can be only one 529A account per beneficiary, normally in his or her state of residence. That is different from the 529 college plans, for which there is no limitation on which state plan is used, and where the distributions are made.
4. Spending for a beneficiary can occur only in his or her state of residence. This will allow simplified compliance verification for federal and state agencies.
5. Contributions in the 529A are with after tax money and are limited to $14,000 a year (in 2015) for each beneficiary from all sources. Individual states may choose to provide additional tax benefits.
6. Investment growth in the 529A is tax-free.
7. Distributions are tax-free so long as they are used for qualified expenses. Otherwise, earnings on distributions are taxed at ordinary income rates with a 10% penalty added. Qualified expenses include housing, transportation, health and wellness, education and more.
8. Having a 529A does not disqualify the disabled individual from Federal and State aid, such as Supplemental Security Income or Medicaid, so long as the amount held in the 529A does not exceed $100,000. Effectively that caps the 529A Account to $100,000.
9. Should the 529A account balance exceed $100,000, Supplemental Security Income would be suspended, but not terminated. Once the balance falls below $100,000, benefits would be resumed.
10. The limitations on contributions and on balance levels suggest that the 529A could be used as a hybrid between an investment account and a checking account.
In the next post we will discuss some of the subtleties and implications of the 529A for planning for disabled love ones. Let me know if you would like me to email you a link to the next post!