Mom's elder law attorney wrote a trust supplemental needs one for brother. Brother is calling and yelling and upset about SSI. He says the lawyer doesn't know what she's doing. I don't think she is expert on the subject. Social Security doesn't give concrete understandable answers when you ask them. I most need to know interaction between trust and SSI.
Money paid directly to someone to provide you with food or shelter reduces your SSI benefit but only up to a certain limit. No matter how much money is paid for these items, we subtract no more than $265.00 (in 2017) from your SSI check for the month you receive the items.
Money paid directly to someone to provide you with items other than food and shelter does not reduce your SSI benefits. (Items that are not "food or shelter" include medical care, telephone bills, education, entertainment, etc.)
SSA website
You cannot give him money. It will disqualify him from SSI. Someone (the trustee) needs to pay for items other than food and shelter. (At least that's what I'm getting from reading on the SSA website.) SSI is intended to be there to pay for food and shelter. You don't want him to lose SIS because then he would lose Medicaid, yes?
Is that what the lawyer has told you? Let me guess...your brother doesn't like the answer.
I just recently took my 78 yo father to apply for SSI. He does qualify, as being (1) elderly, and (2) low income, which gives the 2 qualifications for SSI benefits. SSA will only give up to $500 without the beneficiary showing they have bills/expenditures to pay. If someone is being cared for by others, they won't qualify for their max amount of SSI they will otherwise receive.
E.g., in my dad's case, he lives at my brother's house and pays no part of bills, rent, food. He can only qualify to receive up to $500 total without having verified expenses.
If there are bills, rent, medical expenses that can be documented for SSA, they will provide $700 total (SS + SSI) for any indigent, elderly person.
I'm not sure what the issue is, exactly, in your case, but I hope this is helpful info of what SSI will provide, and under what circumstances.
(My take on this is that Brother is mentally ill in some way; you have to be able to show that the person has legitimate special needs in order to create this sort of trust--it can't simply be that the person doesn't WANT to work).
Brother hounds Hadnuff for control of the money, wants to put it in the stock market, wants to have control over "his funds". And now he is complaining that the lawyer doesn't know what she's talking about.
Have the lawyer reach out to SSI.
The weird thing is that brother had access to cash the checks, when the money should have gone into the trust account.
It depends on the type of trust. There is a way to set one up that doesn't affect SSI eligibility, clearly, because my father was just approved for SSI and they know he has a trust "for his benefit." It's not HIS asset, but it's there to help with expenses.
Regardless, the refund will go to the person in whose name the taxes are paid. It doesn't matter that trust paid/overpaid the tax. That's my experience.