Comments

published in Virginia Tax Review, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 509-562 Fall, 2005

Abstract

An issue of enormous and increasing significance to the vast majority of older Americans, and their families, is who will care for them as they age and require assistance in their daily lives. Such assistance is usually denominated “long-term care,” because it is a chronic phenomenon that is not limited to some specific medical incident. Such care can be provided in a variety of settings, depending upon the intensity of the older person’s needs and the medical nature of those needs, but 80% of long-term care is provided by family members and close friends on an informal and typically unpaid basis. This phenomenon reflects a wide range of cultural norms in this country, as well as certain economic realities. As more Americans attain ages at which some assistance with daily life activities is typical, the federal tax treatment of family-provided elder care will become increasingly important.

This Article considers how the provision of informal care for older family members is taxed presently and how such treatment should be changed in light of changing family dynamics. It begins with a brief description of what informal elder care consists of and the impact of such care responsibilities on the family members who provide that care. The Article then considers how courts have assessed informal caregiving in the context of gratuitous transfers by the recipients of such care. It then examines the tax treatment of informal caregiving as it relates to the personal exemption and the deduction of medical expenses. The Article next analyzes a number of recent legislative proposals that would provide tax credits for family caregivers. The Article concludes with some policy responses to this growing societal concern.

Disciplines

Law and Economics

Date of this Version

January 2006


Download

Share

COinS