Found out that my mother who is on medicaid will be receiving money Does she need to pay taxes?

Kim, you can call or email any CPA in town and they will tell you if she needs to pay. Which more than likely she will.

People are often intimidated by dealing with financial advisers but they have made life SO much easier for us when my dad died.


My only advice, dont get chatty, dont let them get chatty. Talk business. That clock gets expensive :)

An inheritance or life insurance death benefit is not taxable income. It may affect her medicaid eligibility though.

She will need to contact the payer of the amounts and find out if it is a retirement plan of some sort or if she will be receiving a tax information such as a 1099 with some information on it and the IRS would also be receiving a copy with that same information that she would have to use to correctly report the amount on the correct line of her 1040 income tax return OK. But make sure that she does verify the information with the payer of the funds because it is possible that NONE of it would be reportable at all depending on the source of the amount and where it actually does come from at this time OK.
Hope that you find the above enclosed information useful. 06/29/2013

She has to report the money to the Medicaid caseworker. She will be cut off Medicaid until she spends down to $2000 or they will close her account. There is no alternative. You have to legally report income and if they find out by tracing her SSN that she did not report income, she is guilty of federal fraud and that carries severe penalties including criminal prosecution and prison. Medicaid is for people of no means and it is a federal crime.

She does not pay tax on an insurance payment.

if this is something she inherited, no it is not taxable for federal taxes
she will probably lose her medicaid with this kind money at her disposal
the inheritance might be taxable in the state she is in, not all states incur taxes on inheritance