WCI #317: Financial Planning for a Child with a Disability

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

This is White Coat Investor podcast 317 financial planning for a Child with a.

Disability did you know that the White.

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All right, great interview.

Today we have James Lang coming back on so let's get him on the line.

I'm excited to have James Lang back on the White Coat Investor podcast. Those of you who've been to WCICON the last couple of times know him from the talks he's given there. He's been a keynote speaker there for us. He's also run workshops there with us. He's been on the podcast. I think we've had some guest posts from him. He's written a whole bunch of books, eight best selling financial books. He's been quoted all over the place 36 times in the Wall Street Journal. And he also likes to give you stuff. Last time he was on here, over a thousand of you took him up on a book that he sent you. There's going to be some giveaways today as well, and so pay attention and we'll tell you how to get those as we get into this. But his most recent passion is helping other parents like him to have a child with a disability achieve financial security for that child. So here we have somebody who has all this financial expertise, right? Accountant, attorney, all this, you know, authoring he's done. But he also has actually had the experience that we're going to be talking about today. So he's collaborated with two complimentary experts to create a special advisory report detailing the three critical steps to maximize and protect the financial security of a child with a disability. These reports, both the highlights version and the full 55 page version, as well as two other books that are coming out soon, are in the mini bonuses you will get if you give them your email address essentially today, and we'll give you the URL to do that later. At any rate, welcome back to the podcast, Jim.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Jim, and thanks for that very warm introduction.

Yeah.

So I'm not going to reintroduce your whole background to the audience, but I want you to tell them how you got involved in this subject we're going to be talking about today in planning for parents with a child with a disability.

Well, specifically the one sentence version of my background is I have done a lot of studying and writing in both the areas of Roth IRA conversions and planning for IRA owners and retirement plan owners after death, and more recently the Secure Act. And then I've been doing it more or less academically and for my clients. And of course I had a retirement estate plan myself. But when she was about 22 years old, it became pretty clear that our daughter Erica was permanently disabled and would never be able to work. And that's where the extreme worry and anxiety and sleepless nights took over. And the first reaction is, well, just gut it out. Make more money, work longer, save harder, buy life insurance, do everything you can so that you'll be okay the rest of her life. And then I thought, well, why not use my background and not only do that stuff, but then also be smart about it. And I put together in effect a program that is replicatable by most IRA and retirement plan owners. And then, as you know, I'm a great proselytizer. I wanted to tell the world about it. And I got two other great experts. And that's what I am doing actually right now, telling the world how a parent with a child with a disability can best provide for that child both while you're alive and after you're gone.

You know, you mentioned that there's three critical steps that any parent that has a child with a disability should take. Let's just open with that. What are the three critical steps?

Well, the three steps, and then we can go back to each one of them is first getting a child qualified for ssi. That's Supplemental Security Income or ssdi, Social Security Disability Insurance, or perhaps starting with one and then switching to another. That is a government based program. And that not only gives your child a cash flow from a monthly check coming from the government, but also a lot of critical benefits that Debbie McFadden, my co author, calls the golden ticket.

Okay, so step one's ssi. Ssdi. What's step two?

All right, step two is getting your estate planning right. And that is it's, and it's not an easy thing to do because typically, particularly for a child who is on ssi, this can be even after you're gone, that child has a very, very limited amount of money they're allowed to hold outright and very limited amount of income they're allowed to have. So what you have to do is, rather than in effect, SSI is a poverty program. So what you have to do is you have to plan your estate. And typically the answer is a special needs trust. And after many years of experience, attorneys that work in this area know basically how to provide as many benefits from that trust as possible, but at the same time not consider that an asset for the purposes of qualifying for SSI or ssdi.

Okay, so step one's SSI and ssdi. Step two is the estate planning. What's step three?

All right, in step three, so I would say that most attorneys and people that work in the area would know of step one and step two, but Step three, and to be honest, I kind of found that, like, Mr. Magoo wasn't like a. I thought about this quite a bit, is actually doing a series of Roth IRA conversions and getting money from the taxable world to the tax free world. And specifically the most important other than Roth IRA conversions. And there's a variety of tax free ways you can go, but there is one tax free vehicle specific for children with a disability or called the ABLE act, which actually acts very much like a 529 for children with a disability.

Okay, so step three is dealing with your retirement accounts, maybe Rothifying those and taking advantage of ABLE accounts. Okay, let's go back to step one. SSI and ssdi. What are they? What's the difference between them? When should parents apply for each of those?

Okay, so SSI is really a poverty program. And for probably anybody listening, and even for the vast majority of people, if your child is less than 18 years old, they're going to add your income and your assets to see if your child qualifies, and almost certainly they will not. So the best advice, typically for parents with a young child now, you should certainly get started with your estate plan. You should certainly get started with getting Roths and money and tax free. But typically you don't apply for SSI or SSDI until the child is at least 18 years old. So Debbie McFadden, the expert in this area, says apply the first month after your child turns 18. And she actually has some great tips on how to successfully get your child qualified, where the vast majority of these applications are rejected or turned down on the first try.

Turns out it's tricky to get, huh?

Yeah, it is. And if you like, I'll tell you some of the secrets. Or maybe that's going too much into the details.

Well, let's get into a couple of them. I mean, we've never been afraid to get into the weeds on the White Coat Investor podcast. So I think this is probably useful information for anybody listening. So let's go at least into it a little bit.

Okay. And this kind of goes against the gut instinct of the parent, the child, and the doctor who is writing a note for the child because the parent wants to brag about what the child can do. The doctor wants to say how much progress the child is making and how they're adapting. And the child themselves wants to feel like they can do things. So the natural instinct is to say, well, I have this disability, but. And then try to say how they are adapting. That's the exact wrong approach. What you're trying to do here is to say that I have a disability, the disability is permanent and that I can't do the things that other people can do. And it's really important that the doctors understand this because the doctors, the doctor's notes are very important in the termination. So we want to say what the child can't do. You know, they can't dress themselves, they can't get a job and keep a job, they can't pay bills, they can't go to the bathroom, they can't climb steps. Now maybe there's some adaption that they could climb steps, but the straightforward answer is no, the child can't climb steps. Debbie uses the example of her own daughter who is an above the knee amputee, world class climber. But when she was young, Debbie applied and said she can't climb steps because without a special adaption, she could not.

Yeah, this might be a good chance to. Let's pause for a minute and let's talk about your co author and her experience. Debbie McFadden. I understand she adopted a child out of a Russian orphanage who later became quite an impressive athlete.

Yeah, she's just a wonderful person and a true champion in this area. She was the commissioner of the disabilities, maybe I forget the exact name of her title, but she was like the big cheese in the disability commercial world. She was one of the instrumental authors of the disability act of 1990, which is just critical legislation to help millions of children and adults with disabilities. And she was over in Russia working in her capacity and she was in an orphanage and she met this little six year old girl. The six year old girl was born with spina bifida, couldn't use either of her legs, her parents didn't know how to care for her, brought her to an orphanage that had limited resources, she didn't have a wheelchair, she learned how to walk more or less with her arms. And Debbie just went there and fell in love with this little girl and she, you know, didn't. The girl didn't speak English. She was six years old. Debbie brought her home to the United States. She got her proper medical care and when she was very young, Debbie noticed that this girl was a phenomenal athlete. And to make a long story short, she started competing in wheelchair racing competitions and then she went on to win, I believe, 20 Paralympic medals, multiple World championships, multiple marathons, and is one of the most famous, if not the most famous athletes with a disability in the world. And then she is also a great communicator fighting for the rights of people with disabilities. And then she has another daughter, the above the knee amputee, Hannah, who is a world class climber. So she really just has just done phenomenally well with these kids, both of whom applied and received SSI when they were younger. And Debbie is spending her life and her career helping parents get their children qualified for SSI and ssdi.

All right, so let's get back to ssi. Ssdi, SSI is determined based on age and disability and limited income and resources. SSDI based on disability and the work credits, not necessarily of just the individual, but also the parent. So what's the bottom line? You got a disabled kid. When do you apply for each of these?

Well, typically you're going to apply for SSI when the child turns 18 and then that pattern is going to continue. But remember, there's some limitation, there's extreme limitations on ssi. The most important being that the child has very, very limited income and very limited assets. Where ssdi, the child can have income, the child can have assets. Now there's going to be a limitation on earned income, but basically a much more liberal program in terms of what the child can have. So SSDI is going to be more attractive. And there's also typically a higher benefit. Now, like you said, that is a work related program. Typically the child will not have had a work program, but if the parent does, then the parent can use their own work record for the benefit of the child. In fact, that's actually what we did when Cindy turned 66. She actually, we applied for SSDI for our daughter. And based on my wife's work record, our daughter qualified for ssdi, which gave her a monthly income and lots of other benefits that we can talk about. But I don't want to go too far without your prompting.

Sure. Okay. So SSDI, I'm not entirely clear when can you apply for SSDI?

Legally you can apply at age 62, but I think that we're both in agreement. In general, the rule is to wait till either full retirement age, which would be 66 or 70. Depending on, let's say the difference between SSI and SSDI might determine whether and depending on the different work records of the parents, it might determine whether you start at 62 or 66 or 70, but it's going to be somewhere in that range.

But it's when the parent is getting to retirement age, that's when you're applying for SSDI for the child.

That's correct.

Okay. All right, well, let's, let's turn the page. A little bit. And we mentioned step two, some estate planning. And a lot of that estate planning I know is geared around making sure the child still qualifies for that SSI benefit. So you're trying to provide for them without, you know, disqualifying them for ssi. So talk about some of the steps you can do there to.

That's exactly right. So typically what you're going to have, particularly for ssi, where the child, even after your death is still going to have those income and asset limitations, is you want to get the child as many benefits as possible, but you don't want the child to be deemed having those assets or those income or that or whatever income is coming. So, so we have developed these special needs trusts and the trusts really have to be drafted correctly. And the other thing is not only. So there's two problem areas in this trust. Number one, you have to make sure that the trust is going to not eliminate or disqualify the child from receiving ssi. And two, we have those four old conditions that were actually have been present for many years for trust when the underlying Asset is an IRA and a retirement plan. Before 2020, we were able to stretch or defer the inherited IRA over the life of the beneficiary. After 2020, it was only 10 years. But if the underlying asset is an IRA or retirement plan and the instrument holding it is a trust, and we want to stretch that or defer that income, or in the case of a Roth tax free distributions, we need to have all these conditions that very frankly most attorneys botch in this area. So it's really important to go to an estate attorney who understands both the special needs trust and draft in a way to meet the qualifications in order to qualify designated beneficiary. So you want to make sure that your child qualifies for both. And then I'll also tell you the difference, if you like, about the difference between, let's say your child as a designated beneficiary, as a beneficiary of an IRA and my child.

Yeah. Essentially you want that trust to preserve their status as a designated beneficiary so you can stretch it longer. Is that correct?

Yeah, that is correct. But the other thing, and this is really critical, when you die, let's say you and Katie die and you leave money in an IRA or even a Roth IRA to your kids, and I'm going to assume that all your kids will be fully able and not disabled at your and Katie's death. Well, they will have to withdraw all that money and pay tax on it. If it's an inherited IRA within 10 years of your and Katie's death, or if it's a Roth ira, they're not going to have to pay tax on it, but they're still going to have to distribute it within 10 years of your death. My daughter, assuming she maintains her status as being deemed disabled, she will be able to stretch that inherited IRA or inherited Roth IRA for her entire life. And I've been saying pay taxes later for 40 years, and that's in effect what you're doing. But after death, or in the case of Roth, she won't have to pay taxes on it, but instead of having to take it out and have it distributed and being returned to the taxable world like your kids would, my daughter will be able to stretch that for her entire life.

Now, you mentioned pay taxes later, and that's not just a motto for you. That's actually the name of a URL. And it's a URL worth paying attention to today. Because if you go to paytaxeslater.com wci you're gonna get all the goodies that James has given away for this particular podcast. So the books, the special advisory report and the one sheet summary of that, if you want the one page version or you want the 55 page version, you, you get both and you get Retire Secure for professors and TIAA participants. That's actually a hardcover copy. He's going to mail you a copy of that book as well as a digital Advanced Reader copy. So that's where you go to sign up. You go there and ask you your name and your email and your mailing address. And I think that probably puts them on your email address. You send them emails later, but obviously it's email. You can opt out at any time. Okay, so we have now talked about the estate planning, We've talked about ssi, ssdi. Let's get into a little bit of kind of the nuances with both Able accounts and Roth accounts and Roth conversions. Let's start with the Able accounts. There may be some people on this podcast that don't know what an Able account is. Can you explain to them what an Able account is?

Yeah, it's a little bit like when you're trying a new food and somebody says it tastes just like chicken. You go, oh, okay. Well, the Able account is like a 529 account. You put money in, presumably on behalf of the child with a disability. You don't get a tax deduction for that contribution and the money grows Tax free. And assuming that the money is taken out for qualifying use, which is pretty liberal in terms of what is deemed a qualifying use, the distribution will be tax free. And this is particularly important because remember we have these income limitations for ssi. So now we have a source of potential income growing tax free with this Able account. And you can roll the 529 like so. In our case, when we thought Erica was doing fine and that she was going to go to college, you know, we loaded up our 529 account and now she's not going to be able to finish college. So we can take that money and we can then in effect transfer that to an Able account where she will be able to continue tax free growth and take distributions out for her care. And this is an area that very few people, even a lot of the experts don't know about. By the way, for people who have estate plans, they might have to be changed to allow this transfer to an Able account. But it is a great thing. The only limitation is it can't be funded for more than $100,000. And it's run by the. Just like the 529 plans. It's run by the different states. So it's not like a national plan. You know, Utah would have their plan. I don't know who the provider is. I think Utah's 529 plan is Vanguard. It might be Vanguard, but you're most likely going to have a good set of choices for investments and for the state that holds the money.

I first wrote a post about Able accounts back in 2018. I'm looking at it now. It probably needs a little bit of updating. Able. It was the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act. That's where the name comes from. That's why it's called an Able account. That was the acronym they used. Basically you can put in a total of the gift tax exemption each year into the account. Right now that's $17,000 a year. But it can't get bigger than about 100,000 or you can't contribute to it once it hits 100,000. I can't remember which of those rules it is.

Yeah, that's right. You can't contribute more after it hits 100,000.

I think you used to have to be disabled before age 26. But I've got this vague recollection in my mind that that changed recently. Do you recall if that changed with the Secure Act 2.0 or something? I recall that's not a rule anymore.

I'm not sure, if this relates to the ABLE act. But having the child be disabled before age 26 is a requirement for qualifying for SSDI. So when we applied, we had to show that Erica was qualified earlier in her life, which was harder obviously because you had to get doctors and notes, et cetera, of and affect her history. Offhand, I can't remember if that's a requirement or not with the ABLE Act. I will just say that practically everybody I've spoken to who should be using the Able account is not to the full extent possible. And tax free is always a wonderful way to invest and have it be creditor protected. And again, that feature of being able to use it and not be considered income, that will disqualify you for SSI is a great feature.

Now, I think there is a really interesting rule with ABLE accounts. I believe if the disabled beneficiary dies, that some states actually kind of take the rest of the ABLE account and use it to kind of pay back Medicaid. Have you ever run into anybody that actually had that happen to them?

I haven't had that yet. But remember, I'm typically working with parents with a child with a disability. So most of these kids are still young. So I don't have any personal experience. I remember reading something like that. You would think it would be fair that you would be able to transfer it like you could a 529 plan. But I would have to say I don't know.

Yeah, I think you may be able to change the beneficiary. But if they're still the beneficiary when they die, I think some states kind of have that unique rule. But I don't know, maybe it'll change over the years. It wasn't that long ago that only a few states had Able accounts. I think almost all of them have Able accounts now. But I remember when I wrote this post five years ago, it wasn't available in every state. Every state didn't have an ABLE account. So they're pretty new.

Yeah, you were ahead of your time. But even now they are not anywhere near as utilized as they should be.

Yeah, but a lot of them, just like a 529, you get a state tax break for them. Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, at least back when I wrote this post, all offered state tax breaks. So if you have a disabled kid, you need to know about ABLE accounts just like everyone else is dealing with 529s. Your kids may not be going to college, but they probably need you to be funding one of these accounts instead.

Quick note on college, if you qualify for ssi, that not only gives you a monthly check that will give you either Medicare or Medicaid, it will give you vocational training that includes college tuition. It will include a master's degree to hopefully get your child qualified to work. It will include, I know my daughter is on a special Massachusetts insurance program. It really is the golden ticket that gives you a lot more than just your monthly check from the government. In addition to the estate planning benefits.

Yeah, pretty cool. Okay, let's talk now. We've got James Lang on here. We have to talk about Roth iras and Roth IRA conversions, but you feel like there's a special place here for these for parents with a child with a disability. Why is that?

Well, the technical reason is because as I mentioned before, if I die, let's say with a million dollar Roth ira, my child will be required to take minimum required distributions of the inherited Roth IRA based on her life expectancy. So let's say to make life simple that she has a 30, let's say a 40 year life expectancy. After I die, she'll only have to take out 2.5%, 40 divided by the million or $25,000 out of the inherited Roth. And then the rest of the money continues to grow tax free after that. She'll have to take one over 39 times the balance, just like she could under the old PRE 2020or PRE Secure act rules where a fully abled beneficiary of an IRA or an inherited IRA or inherited Roth IRA, that account all must be withdrawn within 10 years. And the difference just that alone, being able to stretch that benefit over their lifetime can amount to a million dollars. And then combine that with tax free growth for the rest of her life compared to 10 years after my death is also an enormous difference. So while yes, I am generally a Roth IRA conversion advocate for most people at some point in their lifetime, it becomes even more mission critical for somebody that has a child with a disability because we can stretch that inherited Roth IRA over their lifetime.

Well explained. Good job. All right, so the three things, three critical steps, SSI and ssdi. Step two is the estate planning, especially a special needs trust and taking advantage of, you know, the retirement accounts that are assets in that trust. And then step three, of course is establishing able accounts and considering Roth conversions, maybe more than you would if you didn't have a disabled child. Those are the three critical steps to take care of. All right, so let's talk for a minute about the order we've talked about the steps. Is there a special order to do any of these action steps in? And what should people be thinking about if they're kind of overwhelmed as they listen to this? What's step one? Where should they start?

Well, that would depend on the age of the beneficiary. So let's say for discussion's sake that your beneficiary is very young and it's very obvious to you that there is a very good chance that your child will be deemed disabled. And let's assume that you are working and you have some kind of income and some kind of assets. So what's going to happen is your income or assets will be added to the child, which even might be zero. It will disqualify the child. So there's no point in even applying before the child is 18. On the other hand, there is a chance that you're going to die. So you want to get the estate plan set up properly. And the other thing. And by the way, that's really a critical thing. And just like I would say to any parent of a young child, you want to have your guardianship provisions in place, even if you're totally broke, it becomes even more critical to have some kind of plan of care in the event something does happen to one or both parents. So you want to get your estate plan right. And two, it's probably depending on where you are in your career, it might be time to be thinking about Roth IRA conversions for yourself as well as your child, just to get this thing going that will most likely help you and will certainly help your child after you're gone. So that's the, let's say, the order, if you will, for somebody before the child turns 18.

And 18 is one of the two magic ages here. Things happen at 18, things happen at 62. So now we're going to break into the next group.

Okay. All right. So between 18 and 62, presumably you've applied for SSI. Hopefully you were approved. The first time we were rejected, we went back, and by the way, we won. And to me, it was kind of. It should have been obvious, given our daughter's problems, but it wasn't an easy win. I took roughly 1000 hours for my wife to document all the historical problems that our daughter had. So that's a real fight. And I wish we had had Debbie McFadden in on that fight with us. It would have been a lot easier and probably would have won the first time. But anyway, so you're qualified, presumably you're qualifying for ssi. You're getting your estate plan in shape, you're getting your Roth IRA conversions at least started. And then the next phase is going to be after 62 at the earliest, maybe 66 or 70, depending on what makes the most sense for your individual family, is switching from SSI to SSDI because that's going to eliminate the income and the asset limitations for your child to give them typically a higher benefit. And it's going to provide more flexibility for you and your child moving into the future.

And does that SSDI continue until their death or only until your death?

No, that actually will continue until their death. Now, there is a potential requirement that every once in a while the Social Security Administration ask for, say, an audit to see if you still qualify. Now, presumably, if nothing changes, then you're going to still qualify. On the other hand, they catch you playing basketball, you don't have a mental problem, then you might have a problem. And this, by the way, is relatively new, that if the Social Security Administration deems your child qualified and disabled, the IRS will respect that designation.

You know, I find it fascinating. I mean, you're an attorney and you couldn't get your child to qualify for SSI on the first application. What hope do the rest of us have? I mean, what should somebody do? Is the first step to call an attorney that specializes in this before you even bother trying to do it on your own?

I hate to say it, but the it's such a mission critical issue. You know, there are a lot of people who are do it yourselfers, and if you are a do it yourselfer, learn about it, whether through my material or somebody else's material. Again, the key is your child can't do this, they can't do that. The doctors have to be coached. You could do this on your own. I think that that is a very worthwhile use of your money to either go in initially or after you've been rejected. Let's say trying again. The appeal. So honestly, given the amount of time my wife spent on it and how close we were to getting disqualified, if I could do it again, I would have gone to a professional immediately. And by the way, that professional doesn't have to be an attorney. Debbie McFadden is not an attorney. You can practice this. And there are people who do this, and some of them are very good at it and well worth your money to do that.

You know, there's a warning here. I think for all you doctors out there, you may not have a disabled kid. You may not care that much about this particular Podcast episode. But the difficulty of qualifying for Social Security disability should make you really consider getting yourself an individual disability insurance policy so you don't have to deal with this hassle. It is very hard to qualify for Social Security disability compared to getting your guardian or principal or standard individual physician specific disability insurance policy to pay out.

Yeah, I would agree with that 100%. And this might sound like a plug for the report, but if you work with any children, if any of your patients have a child with a disability, it would be great to help educate them on what they can do because the vast majority do not have the resources, and I don't mean financial resources, I mean the knowledge resources of what they should be doing.

Yeah, for sure. Very good warning for those in pediatrics and other primary care specialties, those in PM and R. These are all specialties that interact with lots of people with this.

And frankly, it's in the physician's interest because the physician would prefer to be a full pay and there might be either a procedure or certain drugs or certain other things that are not covered by insurance. And if the child qualifies and there's money in the trust or the parents have the money, that's going to be work out a lot better for the physician in their choice of care.

Yeah, so I know in my emergency department they have somebody whose job it is to sign people up for Medicaid. Maybe in your practice you ought to have somebody whose job is signing people up for, you know, ssdi.

I don't know what kind of a.

Practice that would be that you had enough people to justify that sort of help, but it would certainly be a huge value add for certain patient families.

Well, interestingly enough, one of the co authors, that is one of her services. And. Well, that's mainly Debbie's service, which is SSI and SSDI and the appeals. But I know that Julie does get involved and by the way, she actually has social workers on staff. In fact, even though we have a law firm, I used her for our legal work because it is a specialty area.

Yeah, let's talk about this. You know, we've talked about these three kind of areas and you've got three of you writing this book. You know, the first section, kind of getting your SSI, SSDI, that's Debbie McFadden's expertise. The second part, the estate planning. I mean, even you, your firm does estate planning, but you went to Julie Steinbacher's firm to get your estate planning done in this respect. Tell us more about her.

Well, she is, she has been working in this area. And she actually has a group of attorneys that, let's say, follow her lead. She's written books about it. And I think the world of our estate firm, and I think they're really bright people, but they don't have the specialty areas. And some of the really good questions that Julie asks us. And the other thing is it was wonderful having somebody that had access to a social worker, somebody who had experience with the Massachusetts health plan, to have Erica help qualify and to keep her qualified. Just like in medicine, we're becoming more and more an area of specialties, and this is a specialty area. And the difference between getting this right and getting this wrong, at least in my case, it amounts to $1.9 million for our daughter that if we got it wrong, then if we get it right, and that's in today's dollars. And the other thing that I'll mention, why it's so important to get this right and to get the trust right and to qualify and to do these Roths and don't take this the wrong way, Jim, but let's say you screw up your estate plan and your kids end up with a couple hundred thousand dollars or maybe a million dollars less than they would have otherwise, but that they're perfectly capable of work. And knowing you, you have instilled or at least attempted to instill a good work ethic with them. It would be a terrible thing, but it wouldn't be a tragedy if somebody with a child with a disability either screws up or even just isn't proactive. And by the way, you don't have to be rich. Even somebody with a $500,000 IRA getting these steps right that we've been talking about, the difference to the child can be $239,000 in today's dollars. So you really want to get this right. And, you know, I trusted Julie and her extensive experience in estate planning. So, for example, she alerted me. Oh, no, you're. You know, the documents have to be changed because to allow contributions to the Able act. And I didn't know that. So it was terrific having somebody who really knew what they were doing in this specialty area.

Okay, we've been over a lot today, but let me reiterate the offer here. If you will, give Jim your email address and your mailing address. Here's what he's going to send to you. He's going to send you a digital copy of Retire Secure for Professors and TIA participants. He's going to send you a hard copy of that when it comes out later this summer, he's going to send you digital and hard copies of the short report for parents with a child with a disability, again, the hard copy later this summer and a hard copy of that book for parents with a disability when it comes out this fall. So the link there, www.paytaxeslater.com WCI is where you're going to get all that stuff. Yes, he's going to send you some emails. You can always unsubscribe. Yes, he'll probably send you something in the mail. You can ask him to stop doing that. This truly is free, though. You don't have to pay anything. He's going to send you all this stuff. Obviously, if you are in one of these categories, if you are a parent of a child with a disability, this is a great offer and you should take them up on it. All right? And even if you're just interested in this area, you're a planner, you're an accountant, you're an attorney, you're just, you know, a hobbyist, whatever. You, you can get all this stuff too and check it out. Maybe you have a niece or a nephew with a disability. Maybe you just want to check it out for your patients, but that's where you can go and get all of this stuff. All right, Jim, what have we not talked about that people should know about taking care of a child with a disability?

This is something that you don't want to put off. So let's say in my case, our daughter, and by the way, you could have a conversation with her. You could talk with her for a half hour. You'd think that she's a very sweet, intelligent young woman. You might not even realize she has a disability and she could walk across the room just like anybody else, but she just could never get it together to apply for these things on her own. And I don't think anybody but her mother, not even the best attorney or the best advocate, could have done all the work that was required to qualify for SSI or ssdi. You want to do this soon. You don't want to put this off. You want to do it while everybody's healthy, while the doctors who are still working with her are working with her. And you can oversee this entire process. You don't, I would say this to anybody, but particularly for a child with a disability, you don't want to put off your estate planning. You want to make sure that that is right. And you also, of course, want to get into the tax free world of Roth IRAs. And Roth IRA conversions. And I have in the past been relatively passionate about my beliefs and what I think people should do. But now, because the stakes are so much higher, this has become my raison d', etre, if you would, my reason for being and something that I really want to dedicate myself to. Educating parents with a child with a disability and hopefully making that child be in a much more secure space and then obviously help alleviate the worry. Because that worrying is crippling. I can tell you that from personal experience. And my wife and I are doing relatively well financially, but the worry about what's going to happen to our daughter after we die was crippling. So don't put this off. Get this taken care of. Whether you're a do it yourselfer or whether you're going to use some help or maybe a little bit of both, I would try to take action on this.

All right, Jim Lang. First he evangelized for Roth IRAs. Then he evangelized for Roth conversions. Now he's evangelizing for parents with kids with a disability. Thank you for your life's work and thank you so much for being a guest on the White Coat Investor podcast.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Jim.

All right. It's nice to have James back. He loves to get into the weeds and I hope that was entertaining and useful for you, particularly those of you who have a family member or a friend with a child with a disability. It's such important information to have to maximize their financial outcome, you know, because it is important. If you're not doing it, nobody else probably is. And all of us have interacted with people with disabilities, you know, whether they're physical, whether they're more mental, who really are having a very difficult time in their financial life. And so providing for them is really a great service.

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