by Rose Broyles

I wrote an article awhile back about Eldercare Law: When Senior Still Has Mental Capacity and the importance of getting things in order for your parents. This is one of the times where we should have followed our own advice. We figured that since Dad still understands what’s going on around him, we could wait a little longer to secure a Power of Attorney for him. Although he is still mentally alert, he has a hard time understanding what people say to him over the phone. Recently, Dad had a levy placed on ALL of the funds at the bank. The California Franchise Tax Board decided that Dad owes a good amount in back taxes and held his Social Security check.

No Power of Attorney, No Information

Big problem for us, as that money needed to go towards their rent. When we called the California Franchise Tax Board (as indicated by the bank) they would not release any information to me as far as how much he owes, and what kind of payment arrangement we could make (because this would cause a hardship). Yes, I could have just gone over to Dad’s house and have him give them permission for me to talk to them. What a pain that would be! So, after waiting a long time to do this, we decided to go ahead and file for a Power of Attorney at Legal Zoom.

So, we should be getting the papers shortly. We’ll then need to go get them notarized so that we can start handling Dad’s affairs without burdening him. Of course, he already leaves everything to us to take care of. You should make sure that your parents are ok with you handling anything financial, legal or medical on their behalf before you do anything.

No Holds Barred When You Owe Taxes

The problem with tax authorities is that they do not discriminate when it comes to collecting supposed “owed” taxes. They don’t care if you are senior, a single mom or millionaire. It didn’t matter if this was a joint bank account or a single bank account.  Any account with Dad’s social security number attached to it would have been affected regardless. So, even if we had our own money going into that account we ourselves would be affected and couldn’t do anything about it! So, lesson learned. I’ll keep you posted! How about you? Have you had any horror stories with taxes and your parents?

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