What should my parents pay me as their durable POA to handle their finances, make doctor appts, take them to appts & shop for them?

Have you given up another source of earned income to care for your parents? If not, then (in my opinion) perhaps get compensation for gas for your car. That could easily be paid via a credit card they use. If this is full time work for them, which does not appear to be the case, I would not charge a parent for time I spent helping them out. I would never be able to take payment from my parent unless (1) they could afford it and (2) I gave up one source of income and needed to replace it to pay my own bills. Keep track of your time spent on errands on a calendar and tell the siblings they can figure out compensation when it comes time to divvy leftover estate if you still agree to compensation.

For awhile, I never considered taking any money out of Dad's "money-making investments". Once it became clear that his money would survive him, I asked advice from his broker. I was told that 1%/year is a very typical payment. I felt it was reasonable. In the last year, I arranged to have myself paid.

I didn't read all the threads below, but just in case you don't know. Your parents can each give you up to $15,000 a year tax free as a gift. That should cover most expenses.

I let them pay for gas/depreciation on my very old car.

I took care of my mom and dad for 10 yrs and never got paid. I lived with my dad for 6 mos after his heart attack and my mom was in a dementia/alz facility. I was told since I was "only" checking on him ad driving him to appts. I couldn't be paid. He would pay for gas sometimes or pay for my lunch but most of the time it was on me. He was a sweetheart and would have probably been just fine paying me something but I guess I just never pushed the issue (although I probably should have since I was with him almost everyday after he went into retirement community and assisted living, then a group home until his passing in May. Sorry, this answer really doesn't help that much. Good luck and God Bless. Happy New Year to all.....

I do this work free for my bro, with the exception of appointments and such; we don't live in the same town. That said it is a lot of work. His friend in Assisted living has a paid fiduciary; he is paid 90.00 an hour, but he is licensed and he is insured, and does all accounting, taxes, and etc. So you can see a range, and as family serving as a fiduciary I think most of the work isn't in paying monthly costs, but in the beginning, getting everything transferred, mailed correctly and etc. I would discuss it with your parents; you should take into account their own finances. And I would set this in stone, as you will be paying taxes on this "income" and etc. So I would run it past a lawyer, have contract notarized and such. You will be keeping very careful records that can ALL stand up in court, a complete accounting.

I see mallky1 has struck again and done a fine job getting people riled up....

Look at all their replies on this forum. The comment they posted below shaming the OP & bullying her for wanting to be paid—that’s the same type of garbage she has spewed on every other post she’s replied too. All she does is guilt and shame people. For example:

”How did she cope.when you.were a.baby? Same.way, now it's your turn to tend to.her! My mom.lived with me most of her life, died 2 months ago at 101, had.alzheimers for 15 years. Had someone help me half a day but I cooked and fed her until the day before her death. Love her and take care of.her no matter what!!!”

“I am also an only child and had mom with me through her life with me (she passed 2 months ago). I am proud and happy that it was so. I am South American and we are not used to DUMP our parents in nursing home. If you have $6000 a month for a place for your mom, you certainly have the money for an assistant or two to take care of her daily, PLUS if you live next door, visit her daily, that is what children SHOULD DO (not in north america) do you know if she was troubled taking care of you? Changing your diapers? Taking you out and feeding you? Or did she just dump you in a day care when you were too much? Please keep her at her home, find someone to be with her, be with her, take her out, with or without a wheelchair. SHE IS YOUR MOTHER!!!! My mom had alzheimers for 6 years and also on a wheelchair. I had parties for her on her birthdays in restaurants and always took her out on outings with me. But its your decision, you did the same with your dad!!”

I am not sure I understand the concept of charging your parents for something that a daughter should willingly do for her parents!!

Standard rate for unlicensed caregiver in your area.

Having read all the posts here, it's apparent that many of the parents mentioned are VERY old, and their children are now included in the age bracket designated as seniors. It is easier for a 55 y/o to take care of an 80 y/o than for a 75 y/o to take care of a 100 y/o. Situations that existed in earlier generations, or even now in other parts of the world in which life spans may be shorter, often don't present quite the same challenges facing some of the people on the forum who are getting old themselves and taking care of extremely old parents.

I don’t think it requires compensation. But that’s just me and what I chose.

I think it is completely fair to be paid, when it is possible. I have 5 siblings and we share the work for Mom who is in AL. One is more hands on, one does daily finances, one does investment and taxes, and the others pitch in whenever they can. For one person to do that all is a lot and if it is possible to repay that financially I say go for it.

In our case the one who is more hands on spends a lot of time helping Mom out. We are currently discussing with her how we might ease the burden financially. At least gas, but maybe some other money which might allow her to pay for dinner out, or cleaning services, or whatever might make her life easier. For instance, she does pedicures for Mom and we could pay her what a pedicure costs.

I think paying the going rate for home help services might be a starting point also.

Recently, we had my Mom move in with us as we have moved to another state and did not want to leave her alone with no help in another state. She was living in an Independent housing unit that prepared and served her three meals a day. We were paying a caregiver to prepare her medications trays and making sure she was taking them. Her rent was $3200.00 per month and $80.00 per month for the caregiver. Moving to the new state we found that similar housing would cost her the same. Since my husband and I are both recently retired, we fix her meals, do the cleaning, and prepare her medications, make appointments and take her to her many doctor appointments. We decided that she should pay part of the cost of our rent/house payment. We do feel that each one of us must do our part in contributing to the household. We do charge her but much, much less than the amount she was paying in her prior housing situation.

When I started taking reimbursement for being POA, and now as executor of my friends estate, I consulted my attorney and we both agreed that paying me my hourly wage from my last job would be an appropriate number. So that’s what I am doing.

I cannot believe some of the answers to this relatively simple post.  The lady is only asking for how much she should be paid for having POA, and doing the things that she specifically states that she does.
On this same site, I have heard people gush over a man who obviously has money and outside help taking care of his wife . Wives have taken care of their husbands and everyone else since time began but hardly anybody raves about them. And some of the posters on this site especially South American ones rant on about how one needs to take care of their parents because "they gave you life" "they took care of you when you were young", etc. Until the "pill" came along, there was no effective birth control (especially to Catholic women). We Catholic girls were taught to respond to the question "how many children do you want to have" by saying "as many as God wants to give us". We were taught (as countless generations before us were) that it was a wife's "duty" to have sex anytime a husband wanted it. I had wonderful parents but I doubt that they decided 9 months before I was born to "let us give the gift of life to a little girl tonight". And a young parent taking care of an infant or small child is not the same as a 120 lb. older woman herself  trying to care for a mother and father with dementia.

Also, look for the money trail. An older friend (of my grandmother's) who died was forced to work by her parents after high school not only to put her brother through college but also through law school. When my grandmother's friend's husband died, the lady had to go to work as a hair dresser. When the parents died, their assets were divided equally. In past generations, it was assumed that any money available for childrens' education went to the son because "the son in law would take care of their daughter". But that was not necessarily so. 
A book I read years ago was written by an attorney who wrote the story about one of his elderly clients whom he attempted to address the fact that they had spent a fortune sending their oldest son to UCLA where he was in a fraternity, and then sent him through medical school. The daughter had married right out of high school and her husband was an accountant. The other son went to community college. At the reading of the Will, it turns out that the parents money had been left in equal shares to the 3 children.  The accountant son in law thought this was unfair (as do I) and asked the successful doctor if the  doctor didn't think that it would be equitable to give some of his share to his 2 siblings which infuriated the doctor who never spoke to his 2 siblings again.

And not all parents are "wonderful". Is a daughter who is a victim of incest or whose parents beat the crap out of her still supposed to work for free for parents who may live to be 95 years old? If the parents and "surprisingly" a sibling want her to be paid, it is nobody's business what she is paid, whether she should be paid at all or anything else. As for the South American posters, all of the women I know from there believe in their "Machismo" society where it is expected that the husband runs around. I don't know it the wives are proud that their husbands are "desirable" to other women or the wives don't work and have to do as their husbands say. This is how my ancestors from Sicily lived. I took care of my maternal grandmother as well as my parents until I had to call in outside help. I My health was destroyed,  Even though my siblings and I each shared our family real estate equally, 2 of my brothers sued me because I hired sitters for my grandmother and parents. My 2 brothers thought that I was spending what should have been their inheritance on the people who  earned the money. My father in law left my mother in law nothing and taking care of her ( who used to beat my husband with a hairbrush until it broke when he was a child) destroyed out retirement planning. So unless a person knows the whole story, don't comment.

Personally, my mother was poverty stricken for all of her life so I did not take any "pay" for providing care for her. It is a very personal decision.

This site is for people who need help and support and experience from those who are in the same unfortunate circumstances in regard to their elderly parents. Can we not judge and shame each other here? We don’t know what others lives are like and it is unfair and unreasonable to assume that everyone else’s situation is the same as ours. There are millions of websites across the internet where people can be mean and tear each other down all they want. If you disagree with something here so strongly that you need to respond in this way, please go to one of those and just don’t bother responding here.
Happy New Year to all.

Clearly you have opened Pandora's box here, though you intended to open just an simple box!

I have been doing all the POA stuff without compensation, except for occasionally some gas money. One brother told me I should take money for what I do, but I said no, she might need it. When I asked the EC atty about it and said our documents do not specify any payment, he said it doesn't specify we can't, but I didn't want to get into any issues with the IRS or anyone else! Handling finances is the big one, but once I set it up with bill payer on the account, it wasn't that bad. Getting the condo ready for sale took a LOT of my time, but didn't get me anything.

My suggestion is to discuss this with the legal rep who drew the documents up. I have read that an Executor of a will can be paid a "reasonable" fee for the duty, and clearly the POA you have reads similarly, but what you have listed as "duties" do not all fall under POA. You need to understand that POA duties and care-giving duties are different and what they entail. A good EC atty could qualify those for you and probably suggest a reasonable payment too.

For either POA or care-giving duties, I would highly recommend having a notarized document drawn up by the attorney for BOTH scenarios. In the event that either parent ever needs Medicaid, ANY money they give you (the reimbursement for purchases with receipts, hang on to those babies!) can result in penalties, unless you have an appropriate, acceptable document stating everything clearly - this is why you would want to see an EC atty (if the original atty is not one, look for one.)

I would also suggest talking to a competent tax person (I have been using an Enrolled Agent - they have to pass IRS tests and maintain their knowledge all the time - do not rely on regular tax places.) A qualified EC atty may know,but there are rules about income, even when you have an agreement and nasty IRS rules about it - I don't know all the details, but you can be taxed and if proper documentation isn't filed, penalties.

Seek out some qualified assistance before making any decisions about this!

I have POA for my 95 year old mother who lives alone in her house. I live 15 min away from her. If I need to take time off work to go to the doctors or hospital with her I have FMLA and have a lot of sick time saved up so I get paid from my employer every time I take her. But she always gives me gas money. I never ask her for it she just insists that I take it. I tell her I will save it for her if she needs me to buy her something at the grocery store. If I bring her take out food she always pays me for it and doesn’t expect me to pay for her. If I come over to shovel her driveway she pays me. If I say no, she says she will mail me the money. I have it in an envelope for her and use it to buy groceries with. I’m not rich and my husband just retired. We don’t have extra money to spend on everything she needs. I’m not her caregiver. She doesn’t want one. But I help her with things she wants me to help her with. POA is for when someone is incompetent and my mother is still COMPETENT.

daughterintown, don’t listen to Malky. Her shaming you will just bring you down. Of course your entitled to compensation. It is a lot of work that you mentioned. You most certainly should be compensated. I know you’re asking how much? I’m just not sure on the dollar amount. Perhaps ask your parents what they think is fair and come to some kind of agreement.

Maybe you receive a gift of their $$, and the amount of money is in proportion to the number of hours you spend, but it's a gift, not payment, and therefore you don't need to report it to the IRS as income. $30 per hour is a reasonable figure.

I'm not sure where the idea of gift came from for the language I have read from the OP has been pay and compensation.

If you don't want to do the work of POA and caregiving, because it doesn't pay, you can simply turn it over to a conservatorship. They will take their cut, and hire professionals to do the property management, house cleaning, care giving, dr's appts and all the other mundane tasks, and then you and your siblings will positively know what POA and care giving costs locally, at free market rates.

When I asked for compensation, my father, who quit working at 50, now in his 90's with Alzheimer's and is a narcissist told me he'd find someone else to do his grocery shopping for him, he'd ask the neighbors across the street to do it for him. The enabling by the neighbors quickly ceased.

In front of his primary care physician, I asked my dad would he keep going to work if he wasn't receiving a paycheck, every week. He said no, he wouldn't, why do work if you aren't getting paid for it. I explained that taking care of everything about him was work, that I was retired too, that if I still wanted to make money at $200 /300 an hour doing construction as a general contractor, I'd still be working, not retired. But now I was managing his very large estate in the mid 7 figure range, his home, his rental properties, his portfolio, his stocks, his mutual funds, and on and on and on. Much like a Hedge Fund Manager.

No one works for free, nor should they. Those that are here saying they'd never take the money come from families with no money and Socialist backrounds, and are probably quite Liberal. Those that are capitalists, have run their own business, and have decent sized estates or trusts that are a tremendous amount of work to manage, in addition to being successful themselves, and whose best forgone alternative to what their spare time vs their working time is worth, have a completely different set of options.

When I told my sisters I was going to be compensated, I asked them to consider what the position was worth, that which they would be willing to do the job for dad for a salary themselves. Both sisters got back to me with nothing but "caregiver" and "book keeper" rates. I told them they'd also have to call the plumber out if work needed to be done on the house, and be there when the plumber arrived, be there when the house cleaners arrived, and supervise all the time while strangers were in dad's house. I told them they'd have to get 4 bids for a new roof, because dad's roof leaked, it was 68 years old, and they'd need to be there daily the 6 days it took to strip the 2 layers of roof, sheet it, insulate it, waterproof felt it and lay down the new roof. They'd have to water the front and back yard 3x a week in the summer. They'd have to gather dad's valuables when the fires broke out and be prepared to evacuate dad.

I told them that if I didn't feel the compensation was worth it, I would put one of them in charge to take care of everything, uncompensated too, knowing that Dad's Alzheimer's was getting worse.

Neither sister wanted the job, yet neither sister wanted me to be compensated, either. Power of Attorney is not much different than Contract Law and the relationship between Principle and Agent. Agent does work for principle, and Agent either gets compensated fairly, or quits and gets another job elsewhere. One always has the option of quitting the position of POA, and turning it over to a Conservatorship. Do that, and I guarantee, everyone in the family will inherit a lot, lot, lot less from the trust fund, while the Conservatorship blows it all on employees getting salaries, bonuses, health care benefits, paid vacations, so much bloated overhead costs it will make your head spin, how little is left.

If you're doing a lot more than just care giving as POA and managing a substantial amount of assets, then, by all means, it's a job, no one works for free, go and compensate yourself. Or get another job instead that compensates you at your fair market value for the skills and profession you've done for a living.

Certainly your expenses should be covered. Keep records. It sounds like mom has some money to compensate your time. I had my grandparents with me in their final years and now handle everything for mom. $15-20 per hour is my guideline. Again keep records. I spoke to CPA about compensation and treating it as income. If what you receive to provide services/care is below the market rate it is not an issue. This was 15 years ago and the rules may have changed. I'm also POA for my brother and the relatively small amount I was paid to manage him and then into a facility was not held against him related to Medicaid. I had detailed records. I live 125 miles from my mom and brother.

We kind of worked things out before mom got bad but could no longer care for herself. I have 3 siblings nearby and they all decided I, the youngest, should care for mom. Mom's house has 17 rooms and is held in the family trust; so we all own it.


When mom moved in she had already placed me on her checking account many years ago so I could do her shopping. I am a joint owner of that acct and if something happens to her it goes to me.

When she moved in she told me to continue paying her household bills and taxes. We had to move our 23 year old son into her house to keep it insured. The rest of the family was fine with it. I tried to get one of their kids to bit none wanted to live out in a rural area.
Mom also, when she moved in, said she was going to pay for our groceries.

Mon gave me her vehicle also.

Mom has lived with my husband and I for almost 7 years and it has been tough. Everyone else goes on vacations, travels the world and has a life. I have to make arrangements to get a "Granny sitter" just to go to town once a week to buy groceries. Oh, also, my daughter lives next to us. She had an AVM rupture in her brain 4 years ago. She is mentally fine but has vision and balance problems so cannot drive. When her husband is working I do her driving plus I take her daughter to and from school. I am the family caretaker.

My family is fine with however I spend the money. They tell me to spend it so a nursing home won't get it. I feel guilty spending it on myself and I have their blessings to spend it on mom's house repairs since it belongs to us all.

My eldest sister is a doctor. She wanted me to be the sole one to have POA and MPOA. I told her no. We share joint POA and can act independently but she said she doesn't care what I do. ( she has all the $$ she wants, not married, no kids). I refused MPOA and told her that since she is a Dr she needs to do that and any decisions she makes I will stand by them. Mom did sign a DNR and make other decisions years ago. At the time I thought that was not a good idea but now, entering stage 7, I see it as merciful.

I pay moms sitter $10 an hour, if that has any bearing on this.

Long story and it might not have answered anything. Just a different perspective and situation. Just make sure all of the family knows what is going on and is in agreement. Mine is and I guess I am lucky. In a few weeks all of us kids have decided to go preplan and prepay mom's funeral which I feel will come sometime this year because she sleeps 18-20 hours a day and eats one small meal.

Good luck.

I just re-read your question. You have the duties of a POA and a caretaker confused.

A person gives another person a POA to act on person #1's behalf -- like banking, contracting, some medical documents. You need a Durable POA for most Medical decisions. Unless your parents are wealthy, and it isn't "high finance," you don't get paid to take care of the funds. A conservator can do that.

A caretaker does just that: takes care of a person and all that may entail in the ordinary situations of life. If Mom has the ability to do so, she can sign a contact to pay you for your services.

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys
https://www.naela.org/findlawyer
naela@naela.org
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1577 Spring Hill Rd., Suite 310
Vienna, VA 22182 
703-942-5711
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Get an attorney.

The rate of pay could be per diem $20. Only you can decide the amount.
Thank you, NoTryDoYoda.

If the power of attorney documents do not specifically state that the agent (you) is entitled to compensation, you may want to seek legal advice. The law in your state may require an explicit statement allowing for compensation (or it may not).

To determine what reasonable compensation would be, you might contact a professional fiduciary and ask what they would charge. Then discount that rate by some amount to take into account that they are offering professional expertise.