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Financial Planning > Tax Planning > Tax Deductions

Let’s get an LTCI army

By Roy C. Goldberg

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I own long-term care insurance (LTCI) myself who’s struggled for years to promote LTCI.

Here’s an idea for a low-cost way of expanding the LTCI market: Let’s get Congress to make any taxpayers who are already eligible for a federal LTCI income tax break to make that break available for a given taxable year from Jan. 1 through April 15 during the “tax filing” year.

Think about it: From Jan. 1 through April 15, the individual retirement account (IRA) is just about the only vehicle a typical American has for reducing the taxes owed for the preceding tax year.

Every American who uses a competent tax preparer, or uses well-designed tax preparation software, is told to look for more deductions from Jan. 1 through April 15. One of the ideas listed is always, “Contribute to an IRA.”

Do those taxpayers need to think much or plan much in advance to get an IRA? No.

Do taxpayers need to have pesky sales reps build their IRA awareness? Perhaps they did in the early days, and, certainly, having more pesky IRA sales reps would be good for the workers who still fail to save.

But, for the most part, the IRA is now accepted by all people who are diligent about managing their personal finances.

This “after the fact” ability to fund an IRA is one of the major forces for building demand for IRAs.

Getting the federal government to create an above-the-line LTCI tax deduction for all may or may not happen. But everybody who owns a small business, whether it’s a limited liability company or a Subchapter S company, would be more aware of the need for LTCI, and the solution, if only that vast army of tax advisors were on the same side as us LTCI agents from Jan. 1 to April 15 of the tax filing year.

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