CBS Money Watch Tackles Gay Couples

With the overturning of Prop. 8 on the brain, CBS Money Watch contributor and retirement planner Steve Vernon is offering up a number of retirement planning considerations for gay and lesbian couples.

“As a retirement planning expert," Vernon says, "what concerns me is whether there are special retirement planning considerations gay couples may need to take into account.”

Chief among them, he explains, are pension plans that may not provide for partners, retirement and 401(k) plans that may default to a family member if a partner isn’t listed as a beneficiary, and hospital visitation forms which need to specify partners by name.

Vernon says it’s important to note that “the retirement planning considerations for unmarried straight couples and gay couples are very similar. You’ll need to pay attention to the details that are specific to your situation.”

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Reader Comments

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Name: Greg
Date posted: 9/7/2010 10:21:59 AM
Hometown: Providence RI

Comment:
@SteveMD: agree, my partner has a disability- probably never risk marriage.
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Name: Greg
Date posted: 9/7/2010 10:17:14 AM
Hometown: Providence RI

Comment:
@Tom: Health care proxies are super-easy, no lawyer, just a notary. You seem a bit paranoid even for FL!
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Name: SteveMD2
Date posted: 9/4/2010 9:31:58 PM
Hometown: Baltimore

Comment:
Be careful with your assets if you are married. We are quite well off, both just about 70, str8 couple. But there are two big dangers to being married First of all, if one of you ends up in a nursing home, the $100,000 per year can bankrupt both of you. Better off you are unmarried partners,, gay or str8. BTW, to get someone on medicaid (medicare does not cover custodial care in a nursing home, eg Althseimers /debilitating strokes, they now look back 5 years re gifts etc, and as a single person the limit is 13000, and as a couple its about 26000 So if you Second, you can leave as married partners an unlimited amount of money to the other. But if the estate tax exemption limit stays at 1 mil, while you can avoid estate tax on the first to die, what happens if you die, the partner now has eg 2 mil, and dies. YOur heirs will end up with only a one mil exemption, and pay possibly 50% esst tax on the other mil. This is very complicated get an estate lawyer to help
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Name: allan
Date posted: 9/4/2010 7:57:09 PM
Hometown: malibu adjacent

Comment:
tom from cocoa beach.. I just love your last line. Right on Honey...
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Name: Tom
Date posted: 9/3/2010 8:51:43 PM
Hometown: Cocoa Beach

Comment:
Hopefully he is also including all of the additional upfront costs. While married couples get all of this planning done for the cost of a marriage license, gay couples must pay lawyers to formalize not-quite-equal documents. And then there are the hospitals and families that choose to ignore these documents anyway, until we pay our lawyers again to sue them. Finally, there is the cost of loosing out on all of the Federal and State benefits that can never approximated by any other legal contracts. Gays don't enjoy getting screwed so much as some might think.

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