Social Security Says Reporting Changes is Our Responsibility

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Dec. 10, 2015 - If you receive benefits from Social Security, you have a legal obligation to report changes, which could affect your eligibility for disability, retirement, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.

You must report any changes that may affect your benefits immediately, and no later than 10 days after the end of the month in which the change occurred.

Changes you need to report range from a change of address to traveling outside the United States for 30 consecutive days.

To get a list of reporting responsibilities under disability, please read our publication What You Need to Know When You get Social Security Disability Benefits, and for SSI, read What You Need to Know When You Get Supplemental Security Income.

If you’re receiving retirement benefits, What You Need to Know When You Get Retirement or Survivors Benefits is also helpful.

Life changes can affect your benefits. You may be due additional payments, or you may be overpaid and have to pay us back because you didn’t report the overpayment in a timely manner.

The SSI program may apply a penalty that will reduce your benefits if you fail to report a change, or if you reported the change later than 10 days after the end of the month in which the change occurred.

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If you fail to report changes in a timely way, or if you intentionally make a false statement, we may stop your SSI, disability, and retirement benefits. We may also impose a sanction against your payments. The first sanction is a loss of payments for six months. Subsequent sanctions are for 12 and 24 months.

You can report your change online at www.socialsecurity.gov, or by calling toll free at 1-800-772-1213. If you’re deaf or hearing-impaired call TTY 1-800-325-0778. Mail the information to your local Social Security office or in person if you prefer.

If you receive SSI, you should ask about our options to use the automated toll-free SSI Telephone Wage Reporting Service or the free SSI Mobile Wage Reporting Smartphone app.

If you receive benefits and need to change your address or direct deposit, you can conveniently do so by creating a my Social Security account at www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.

Get the right check, in the right amount, at the right time, by reporting changes right away!


 

Ouch, I wonder if I were outside the US (visiting family) for more than 30 days, if they'd keep part of my SS check? Surely not. Maybe they just want to make sure we don't go to another country to work while collecting SS here.
 

Here's a law site with some more info Linda, I don't think they would keep part of your check. http://www.lawhelpmn.org/resource/will-travel-outside-of-the-country-affect-my?ref=WM4Bf


Social Security Retirement and Social Security Disability: As discussed above, these benefits will continue while a United States citizen travels outside the United States. However, the federal government cannot send benefit checks to certain countries.

This obviously only affects you if you plan to go to one of those countries and stop your direct deposit of your benefit check to your local Minnesota bank account. The federal government considers you to be outside the United States once you have been outside the country for 30 days.

The Social Security Administration will continue to send out benefit checks to U.S. citizens in foreign countries for as long as the U.S. citizen remains eligible for the benefits. However, the SSA can’t send the checks to you in Cuba, North Korea, and generally will not send checks to Cambodia, Vietnam, parts of the former Soviet Union (other than Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia).

Of course, the checks can continue to be directly deposited in your U.S. bank account. The SSA will send your benefit check to you in Finland, and the U.S. embassies in Finland have people that are trained in Social Security services, but perhaps it is better to keep your benefit check directly deposited to your local bank. Even though your trip to Finland will not affect your Social Security retirement benefits, it is wise to contact the Social Security Administration to inform them that you will be out of the country for more than 30 days.
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I have an acquaintance who ran afoul of this and wound up in a pot of trouble. It all got straightened out, but it was a mess while it was going on. She didn't intentionally misstep, but she didn't know she had to report certain other short term benefits while she was getting SSI and it came back to bite her bigtime.

What a lot of folks don't realize is that even if YOU don't report certain income, there's a good chance the payor WILL, and when the feds start comparing numbers, you are dead meat. It's not so much a question of IF it will catch up with you, but WHEN. Nowdays, with all the online reporting, it'll probably catch up sooner than later.
 
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