Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

[00:00:00] Hello, and thank you for joining us for our attainable 1 0 1 presentation. Attainable is the Able Savings Plan for Massachusetts. My name is Adam Hartwell and I’m the director of Attainable Outreach for MEFA. MEFA is a state authority that was created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982, helping families plan, save, and pay for college and reach financial goals.

What is the ABLE Act? The Stephen Beck Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience or ABLE Act, amended the federal tax code in 2014 to add Section 5 29 A. This legislation established what are called ABLE Accounts Tax Exempt Investment accounts for eligible individuals with disabilities to be used for qualified disability expenses while keeping eligibility for federal public benefits.

Additional provisions and expansions have been made to the act continually since its adoption. There are 49 active able programs in the United States of America in Massachusetts. The ABLE Program is called the Attainable Savings Plan. Attainable was launched in 2017. MEFA is the state sponsor, and Fidelity Investments is the [00:01:00] program manager.

What that means is that MEFA is here to answer questions about how to utilize the account, and Fidelity is the people who hold the bank accounts and will be able to advise on how the account can be utilized and accessed. Now, who is eligible for an attainable account? Individuals are eligible for an attainable account if the onset of disability occurred before the individual turned 26 years old due to the able Age Adjustment Act that is going up to age 46 at the start of 2026 on January 1st.

That is regardless of current age, so it’s the age of onset, not current age, and not age of diagnosis. The person should be eligible to receive SSI or SSDI, whether or not they’re actually utilizing that and the disability should be considered. Marked and severe, which is a Social Security administration term, which indicates that it is an impairment that causes serious, significant limitations in a person’s ability to perform basic work or age appropriate activities lasting at least 12 months and expected to result in death and meets or functionally equals the [00:02:00] criteria of the Social Security administration’s listings of impairments and or self certifies as meeting requirements such as those listed in the Social Security administrations.

Blue Book General Categories. We can see at the Royal on the right hand side of the screen today or within the Social Security administration’s compassionate allowances. Compassionate allowances are conditions that primarily include certain cancers, adult brain disorders, and a number of rare disorders that affect children.

One of the things that we should really consider is the fact that there are actually a broad range of conditions beyond just developmental disability that would therefore qualify you for able, such as mental health disorders, long-term cancer recovery, cardiovascular disorders, respiratory disorders, so on and so forth.

You are also qualified for able, if you are blind.

The benefits of an attainable account is that the funds and attainable accounts are not counted against federal benefits. Those include things like SSI hud, including hud vash, SNAP fafsa, or VA pension. Attainable accounts allow the current [00:03:00] account owner to or beneficiary to save above the current $2,000 asset.

SSI asset limit. Family and friends can also contribute to an at to an attainable account. Beneficiaries have relatively immediate access to funds for their needs. Uh, we’ll be going into more detail about utilizing the account a little later in the presentation. And accounts provide individuals with disabilities both financial independence, many tax benefits, and the ability to save for their needs.

Now what are qualified disability expenses? These are the things that you’re allowed to use your attainable account to pay for any health expenses, any personal support services, including financial management, legal fees, or able account oversight. All transportation fees. That does not just mean a bus pass.

That also means you can buy a car, you can pay for fixing your wheelchair van ramp, anything like that. Anything transportation, including rideshare programs, employment trainings and supports, funeral and burial expenses, assistive technology and related services, which does include things like apps for say, [00:04:00] augmentative communication.

So for instance, if you already had an iPad, but you wanted to purchase a, uh, the a communication app to go onto it, which can cost several hundred dollars. This would be a way that you could save for that housing expenses, which we’ll go into detail next. Education expenses, which include all things involved in education, including lab fees, uh, you know, trade school tools, your tuition you can pay for college out of able.

Prevention and wellness expenses as well as basic living expenses. And one thing that we’ve clarified a couple years ago is that food is a qualified disability expense, no matter where it comes from, whether it’s groceries, food delivery, going to a restaurant, all food is a qualified disability expenses.

The thing that we should be keeping in mind is that these are not supposed to be limiting definitions. It is a broad scope. The idea is if. You have a need, you should be able to pay for it out of, uh, your, uh, your savings in an able account. These are not going to be necessarily things that are for [00:05:00] wants, but definitely anything that could be construed as a need.

When it comes to housing expenses, one of the things that you might want to think about is, uh, cost for in-kind, support and maintenance, as this not only can be a good guideline for what will count, but also can be used as an excellent way of keeping records if you are having to pay in kind support and maintenance while living with family.

Because you can use an ABLE account to pay for mortgage and house down payment. You can buy a house with your able account savings. You can also include the property insurance required by the mortgage holder. You’re allowed to pay for your rent, including first, last, and security on a new place you can pay your real property taxes.

Those are the taxes that, uh, stay, that are on the parts of the property that stay when you leave. Things like the land or the buildings as opposed to personal property that comes with you. Heat, gas, electricity, water, internet, sewer, garbage. All of your bills can be paid for out of savings in an enable account.

Now who’s allowed to open an account? Attainable accounts can be opened by a person who is referred to as the person with signature [00:06:00] authority. Whoever is the PSA is the person who has the ability to access, to make withdrawals from, to use the account. And that is often, but not always, separate from the individual with the disability, who is always considered the owner of the account and is the beneficiary of the account.

So the people who can be a PSA include the individual with the disability themselves. You can absolutely have the account in your own name, the person with your power of attorney, they’re your legal guardian, spouse, parent, sibling, grandparent, or representative payee. This is a hierarchy, so people who open an account must certify that there’s not anyone above them in the hierarchy willing to enable to establish the account.

Always consider that the beneficiary is the owner of the attainable account regardless of whether someone else has signature authority over it. There are some document requirements that will be required to be submitted if you decide to open this account. Depending on your relationship, the individual with a disability will naturally not be have to prove, uh, that they have that relationship to themselves.[00:07:00]

But a power of attorney will need to have a copy of the attorney. Drafted power of attorney documentation, and fidelity only accepts durable power of attorney paperwork. A legal guardian must have a copy of the court document appointing conservators or guardians. Uh. Certified and presented to Fidelity before the expiration date that is indicated on the court document.

Now, one thing that we have noticed is that a lot of these court documents do not have expiration dates filled in on them, and those will be rejected. So if you have court documents that don’t have an expiration date, you’ll have to have a way, you might have to go back to the court to have those filled in before you submit them to fidelity.

Spouse, parent, sibling, or grandparent. These family relationships, you don’t need to provide paperwork proving that relationship. However, fraud protections will still protect the the beneficiary. If you don’t have that relationship. Rep payee will have to have a copy of their Social Security administration documentation giving representative payee status.

If the [00:08:00] representative pay is an entity, like an organization or an agency, the additional documentation is required to verify the organization. So you’re going to need to include legal paperwork assigning the individual this designation. And again, no paperwork is required for spouses, parents, siblings, or grandparents.

Uh, contribution limits have increased in 2025 for attainable accounts. Uh, this has actually been a pattern. We’ve seen a lot of increases over the years to these accounts. The total contribution for annual contribution for attainable accounts in 2025 is $19,000. If employed, the beneficiary may contribute up to an additional $15,060 each year from earnings due to the able to work act.

You contribute up to the lesser of the account owner’s gross income for the taxable year or the federal poverty level. So that means that if you are earning $20,000 a year, you can put an additional $15,060 [00:09:00] above the 19,000 per year into your able account for a total of $34,060. However. If you are only earning $10,000 a year, you have to, you can only add that additional tens for a total of 29,000.

It is the lesser of your gross income or the federal poverty level. You are not allowed to contribute this extra amount if you are participating in a retirement account from your employer, but you are still allowed to do the base amount, the, you know, 19,000. You are allowed to save up to a hundred thousand dollars in savings within an ABLE account that will be disregarded as a resource and will not affect SSI.

So where you, for previously only were able to have $2,000 outside of Able, you were now allowed to have an additional a hundred thousand dollars. Enable before affecting SSI, your account balance cannot be added to once. It ex exceeds $500,000. So if you are not concerned about the SSI asset limit, you can go up to $500,000 in contributions into the account.

The account is [00:10:00] allowed to continue to grow from investments. After that, you’re just not allowed to, uh, continually, actively contribute to it any amount. Of able savings up to the plan limit of $500,000 will not affect eligibility for SSDI housing assistance snap uh, fafsa, Medicare parts A, B, C, or D Medicare savings Program.

Extra help or any Medicaid benefit including Medicaid waiver services. Here in Massachusetts there are no annual account maintenance fees and attainable accounts are investment accounts though, so they have investment fees that vary based on the portfolio, and they range from 0.2 to 0.86% of assets.

Before the ABLE Act, individuals again are only allowed to have that $2,000 in assets, which is reviewed monthly for all expenses. This meant that savings are discouraged and unexpected income or routine savings could easily exceed the limit, forcing what would often, often referred to as a spend down.

We [00:11:00] a. Individuals household will have to spend their money in order to get them underneath $2,000 so that they can keep access to their, their benefits, their housing, their doctor, and all sorts of other things that are very, very necessary for them to live. Um. This made it very hard to say for things like, uh, a reliable vehicle, surgery, medical care in general, many, many things that were, uh, in an enforced position of, I cannot save for that thing that I need.

Attainable provides the opportunity for individuals to save for those larger expenses without fear. Attainable also provides a place to move funds so that forced spending isn’t necessary. In general. Attainable just allows an individual to save. One of the things that we like to highlight is the education of be, uh, of benefits when it comes to saving an enable account.

Attainable accounts can be used for education expenses, including, again, tuition. You can pay for your, uh, for your college education, your textbooks, your assisted technology, your one-on-one assistance. [00:12:00] You can go to trade school with money from your able account and buy your tools. There are many supports that are provided in high school that are initiated by staff.

There’s a one. A need is, is recognized for a student. The staff will go and seek out the remedy for that need. One of the cliffs that we see in education is that when someone gets to college, those supports need to all be initiated and advocated for by the individual. The individual suddenly needs to be the one to go to disability services, explain their needs, have those needs expressed to their professors.

Be able to advocate if the professor is not falling through with those needs. Sometimes that can be a lift that can be alleviated by a financial assist. If someone can pay for an advocate, can pay for technology that can record their lessons, so on and so forth. So having savings for educational benefits can provide opportunities for education equity.

There are many other examples [00:13:00] of, uh, qualified disability expenses that can be very helpful to an individual for quality of life, whether it be employment expenses, like job related training, tools, certifications, uniforms, coachings, moving expenses, startup fees. Health expenses like health insurance, mental health services, medical vision, dental, rehabilitation, durable medical equipment, respite care, nutrition, assistive technology like hearing aids, wheelchairs, transfer devices, prothesis, screen readers, braille, keyboards, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We have, of course, so much on the screen here, but the point is, is that there is so many things that we can use savings in enable account to increase quality of life. Taking money out of an ABLE account is fairly simple. Uh, the attainable funds can be transferred to any other bank account. You can transfer it to your current checking account and with, you know, bank of America citizens where your local credit union, wherever you’d like to go.

Once funds leave the account, they, if they are redeposited, they will still count towards [00:14:00] the annual limit, so it will count as a a dollar towards that $19,000 again. If I take out a hundred dollars, uh, that I had already put into able, and then I decide I didn’t want to use it and I put it back in that, that a hundred dollars now counted twice towards the annual limit.

And we should be mindful of that when we’re making withdrawals from ABLE funds. Withdrawn for housing must be used within the same calendar month that they are withdrawn. So don’t take money out on the. You know, on the 30th to pay your rent on the first, we recommend, you know, take your money out on like the 25th, so then you can pay your money, your rent by the 30th and make sure that you don’t violate that rule and you’ll.

You have trouble with the IRS, uh, because withdrawals from an attainable account are an investment trade time should be allowed for the funds to be deposited. Generally, it takes about 24 hours for that money to clear. Um, one of the things that we found can be very helpful for some individuals is opening up what is called a fa uh, fidelity Cash Management Account, or [00:15:00] CMA at the same time as establishing an attainable account.

This is essentially opening a bank account with Fidelity at the same time as you’re opening your attainable account, which is an investor. Account. This will allow you to use their app to move money directly between these accounts and can also be very clear as, uh, keeping paperwork. As far as spending, uh, users will still need to transfer funds, but doing so is very simple since the funds stay within the same company.

Cash management accounts do come with a Visa logo, debit card that can be used at retailers or at any ATM without fees. So once you get that debit card, you can also set it up. So that might, that might be the card that’s being used to pay for bills and again, can simplify the process. A question that we’ve received, uh, several times and so we’ve included, is whether or not savings in a bond can be rolled directly over into able, unfortunately, they cannot, you’ll need to cash them out and then deposit them into able afterwards.

Opening an account is fairly simple. We generally recommend that people go to [00:16:00] MEFA.org/attainable in order to take advantage of the wide array of, uh, educational opportunities and information about attainable that we have available there, after which you would want to go to fidelity.com/able and. Uh, where you will be able to open the account, uh, we would suggest reviewing the Fidelity Attainable Savings Account Disclosure document.

It is a very detailed document with all of the information from a legal standpoint about how able operates. One thing that I hardly suggest is that people decide how to allocate funds in the account among the 10 portfolio options, which include a money market portfolio. Before clicking the Open an account button, uh, be as it is often a point where people go several steps in Discover, they have to make a decision about a portfolio and are not prepared to make that decision and therefore have to start all over.

All of the portfolios are listed on the fidelity.com/able website, and you can go into them in detail there without starting the process, [00:17:00] so you can make that decision ahead of time. If you are a representative payee, the Social Security Administration requires that you must title the ABLE account to show that the payee has a fiduciary interest in the funds and that the beneficiary owns the funds but has no access to them.

The Social Security Administration recommends the account be titled in one of the following way. Uh, beneficiary’s name by representative payee’s, name representative payee or payee’s. Name representative payee for beneficiary’s name on fidelity.com/able. There is a picture of a cell phone with two phone numbers next to it.

That can be very helpful when you’re in this process. Those numbers are 8 4 4 4 5 8 2 2 5 3 TT Y 800. 5 4 4 0 1 1 8. This number goes directly to the attainable trained team at Fidelity. So if you have any questions about your account, if you’re having any problems with your account, this would be the phone number to call in order to be able to spot talk to someone who has full familiarity with the accounts and how they operate.

A tangible savings should be invested in these professionally managed [00:18:00] portfolios that match the beneficiary savings goals and risk tolerance. There are 10 possible portfolios offered by Fidelity only. You cannot select other stocks for your able account, uh, to go into. It has to be one of these accounts.

However, you can split it amongst these accounts, so you can put half of your money at the 20%, uh, conservative income portfolio. You could put the rest of it at 85%. You can move it, you can split it up however you’d like. Uh, these units of portfolios are municipal fund securities and are subject to market fluctuation and volatility and gainer loss may occur when units are sold.

Beneficiaries are allowed to change those portfolio, uh, options twice per calendar year. There’s a lot more information again on these on Fidelity’s website. Attainable accounts are eligible for direct deposit, including of your SSI or SSDI benefit funds. Direct deposit of a paycheck must stay under the initial $19,000.

If someone wants to contribute the additional $15,060 a avail allowed by able to work, it [00:19:00] must be deposited manually. Direct depositing into an attainable savings account is just like any other account. It requires a routing number and an account number. Uh, be aware that because this is an investment account, sometimes the number of digits in the account number doesn’t line up with the boxes that you might be given by your employer.

However, I assure you it will work. You just might need to have a conversation with your HR department. A direct deposit of your work income can be split between an attainable account and other bank accounts. So you could put half of your, uh, work income into an attainable account and half of it into a checking account or however you’d like to divide it up.

SSI and SSDI are only allowed to be deposited into what is preferred to as a designated account. So an individual may pre authorize a financial institution to transfer funds into other bank accounts, including an attainable account. But if you don’t want. All of your money to go into able, then you’re going to need to put all of it into a checking account or a savings account, and then select the amount that you’d like to put into attainable yourself.

We do have the ability to accept automatic contributions [00:20:00] into able accounts. One of the ways that we have it set up is for $15 a month or $45 per quarter. However, you do not have. To do that, and then you do not need to put any money into an NA account when you are first opening it. It can be opened with $0.

It can be opened with $1. It could be opened with a thousand dollars. It is really up to the individual who’s opening the account. As for record keeping, SSI payee are of course responsible for keeping records on how they spend or conserve benefits. Uh, be sure to keep accurate records of the contributions and subsequent use of the funds provided by your benefits.

So if the payee mixes social security benefits with. Other funds that belong to the beneficiary, the payee must maintain a record keeping system to differentiate those social security benefits from other funds. In other words, if you have an ABLE account and you put a hundred dollars that you got from your grandmother and you put a hundred dollars that you got from Social Security into the account, there’s no possible way for anyone to know.

Where those monies came from initially. And so a record [00:21:00] needs to be kept that a hundred dollars of that is from the Social Security Administration. As SSI has their own spending rules and that money must be spent according to those rules. Uh, pay should keep these records for at least two years according to the Social Security Administration.

However, we have seen requests for three years of, uh, records, uh, from both DDS and DMH, and therefore that is what we recommend. There are some taxes and fees for non-qualified expenses. This is when you, uh, make a withdrawal for the purposes of spending able, uh, funds on something that did not meet any of those, uh, categories that we talked about earlier, earlier.

For qua, uh, for qualified disability expenses. So if a withdrawal is made for a non-qualified disability expense, and particularly if you are spending the money that came from the growth on the investments, the account order might be subject to both regular income taxes and a 10% penalty on the earnings from that investment.

There are two circumstances in which a non-qualified distribution is not subject to that 10% federal penalty tax, and that would be distributions made on or after [00:22:00] the death of the beneficiary to the estate or heir or legacy of the beneficiary or distributions constituting the return of excess contributions to the contributor on or before the due date, including any extensions of the beneficiary’s federal tax return for the Fed taxable year in which the excess contribution was made.

There are, on the other hand, many tax benefits to able, uh, due to the ABLE Financial Planning Act provided the beneficiary is the same on both accounts or one beneficiary. As a family member of the other, it is allowable to transfer funds from a 5 29 college savings plan into an able account without incurring any taxes or penalties.

Initially, this was due to expire at the end of uh, 2025. However, it is now a permanent addition. Uh, able account owners who meet certain criteria can receive a saver’s credit on their federal taxes for contributions into an able account. Individuals are eligible if they’re age 18 or older, not a full-time student, and not claimed as a dependent on another person’s tax return.

Their credit [00:23:00] received is currently 10%, 20%, or 50% of contributions up to the first $2,000 based on the individual’s adjusted gross income. This number will be increasing to 2100 in 2027. Finally, as long as withdrawals are spent on qualified disability expenses, attainable account growth is federal income tax fee-free.

This would be our screen for after the owner or beneficiary of the account has passed. The beneficiary or PSA can assign a successor beneficiary in the event of their death who will receive the account balance in their attainable account after all account actions had been completed. The beneficiary or person with signature authority can assign someone to receive the funds as part of their estate in the event of their death, who will receive the account balance.

After all account actions have been completed. The funds will need to be removed from the ABLE account in this instance before being received as that person would not be qualified to have an ABLE account. After the death of the beneficiary, the account will be restricted for 12 months. [00:24:00] During this time, uh, the account is subject to Medicaid, recapture from any state wherein the beneficiary has lived, and this is for post premium, uh, dollars.

This is for money that is spent on direct expenses from Medicaid. It should be noted though that none that Medicaid recapture takes place. After all, actions on the account have been completed and any outstanding qualified disability expenses can be paid out of the account before this takes place, which means that any hospital bills can be paid for out of the able account.

Uh, that last month of rent will can be paid for out of the able account. The funeral and burial expenses can all be paid for out of the able account before any of this happens.

Um, we’d like you to consider the gift of college because MEFA has teamed up with gift of college.com, uh, to provide an option, a great option for birthdays, holidays, and graduations, but more importantly, can also provide a really wonderful. Ability for putting contributions from family and friends into able accounts.

[00:25:00] Uh, these are cards are available in denominations from $25 up to $200 at cvs Cumberland Farms Stop and shop stores across Massachusetts as well as on mefa.org [email protected] you can give the card to any student. Expect a young parent or an ABLE account and those card funds can be put towards college savings.

Student loan debt or able account where this can be very, very beneficial to a person who has an attainable account is that it means that the individual is never holding a cash asset. So if the family would like to give, uh, an individual a couple hundred dollars for groceries, and you’re worried about the SSI asset limit, that person never had.

An asset, they never had cash that could be spent as they wished. They only had funds that could go directly into their able account where it is a protected amount of money. So it can be very helpful if and to use this instead of, uh, being given a check on holidays and what have you. There are many resources available across the internet that we’d love to [00:26:00] make sure that you’re aware of, including MEFA.org/attainable where we try to put up as much information as we can for you.

The Able National Resource Center, which is a national resource for able, they have some fantastic webinars, attainable Savings plan, uh, as offered by Fidelity net. Means that fidelity.com/able also has spectacular information all about able. The Social Security Administration puts out a lot of information about ABLE Accounts as they are one of our best friends people.

People seem to think that we should be an adversarials or relationship with them, but the Social Security Administration loves not being able to have to chase people down for, uh, doing spend downs and what have you, and would rather people be able to take care of themselves and be able to increase their life satisfaction rather than be the bad guys in those situations.

Uh, there is also a mefa attainable email signup at mefa.org/able registration form. This is a fantastic way to stay up to date. Uh, just we’ll send you stuff in the email. We promise we won’t owe. Overwhelm you. Just trying to make sure that if there are any significant [00:27:00] changes to the program that we can make sure you are aware of.

You can also connect with me if on social media, at Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, on X, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, and uh, we also have a pop. Podcast at MEFA.org/MEFA podcast. If you have any questions about the account, please reach out to us at 8 4 4 9 MEFA. That’s 6 3 3 2 or [email protected], and we will do our best to answer your questions and get back to you as soon as we can.

Thank you so much for your time and I hope you have a spectacular day.