Geraldine Smokoski would like to see her valuables go to her family after she dies, not to the state to help pay back Medicaid expenses.
Smokoski, a Lake Orion resident, is circulating a petition to help stop a vote on the state death tax, or so-called Grave Robbers Bill, Law Obra #93. Michigan lawmakers are set to vote in October on the tax, which would allow the retroactive collection of the cost of Medicaid benefits given to persons over age 55, upon their death or death of their spouses, by seizing their homes and personal property such as jewelry.
Smokoski said most seniors aren’t even aware the tax exists in Michigan, because it has been linked to the federal death tax.
“Anyone in the nursing home now receiving Medicaid will have to pay it back if this passes,” she said. “I don’t get involved in this (kind of thing), but when my attorney was telling me about this, I knew I had to.”
Smokoski’s attorney is Monte Korn, who practices in Warren as an attorney for the elderly.. He has financed the petitions that Smokoski plans to make available around Lake Orion.
“He’s been talking about it for about two months,” she said. “From what I understand, Michigan is the only state left (to pass it). It’s just taking blood out of seniors as far as I’m concerned.”
If your assets are insufficient to pay back the debt after you die, Smokoski said the law would allow medicaid benefits to be paid back through other family members.
“They come after the siblings,” she said. “I said ‘What are they going to do with this stuff?’ (Korn) said they’d probably put it in a warehouse and have an auction.”
Smokoski said she has friends across the Detroit Metro area in Sterling Heights and Troy, and none of them have heard anything about the death tax.
“Carl Levin sent out cards about it, asking if people opposed it or were for it,” she said. “That’s the only outside (information) that I know of.”
Smokoski just received her petitions opposing the tax Labor Day weekend, so she said she will be pushing this month to get as many signatures as she can before the vote in October. The petitions are available for signing or picking up at L/S Pharmacy in Lake Orion, as well as The Lake Orion Review office at 30 N. Broadway.
“I’ve gotta get going (with the petitions),” Smokoski said. “As a taxpayer and good citizen, why should we be penalized after we die? It’s uncalled for.
“I’m a senior citizen, we pay a school tax but we don’t have kids in school…but I don’t object to it. We’ve scrimped and saved all our lives so we have it better now,” she said. “Why should they be able to take that away?”