Posted on 08/15/2002 6:03:31 PM PDT by Dog Gone
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 4,800 public school teachers in Texas and Georgia used a Social Security loophole to qualify for increased benefits that during their lifetimes could amount to about $450 million, congressional investigators said Thursday.
Benefits are usually payable to the spouses of retired, disabled or deceased workers covered by Social Security. A 1977 law reduced those spousal benefits for state and local government workers who also receive a pension from work not covered by Social Security.
But the law allows workers to avoid that reduction in benefits if they are covered by both Social Security and their government pension during their last day on the job, the General Accounting Office said in a report.
The investigators said 4,795 teachers in Texas and 24 in Georgia have used this loophole, transferring briefly to jobs covered by Social Security before retiring.
In Texas, the teachers typically worked a single day in clerical or maintenance jobs before retiring, paying about $3 in Social Security taxes, the GAO said. In Georgia, teachers worked a year in another teaching position in a school district covered by Social Security.
Officials in both states told the GAO that use of the exemption would likely grow as more people become aware of it, the report said. Teaching associations and Web sites have been spreading information on how to use the exemption, the GAO said.
The investigators said they did not have time to confirm if government workers outside of Texas and Georgia were using the loophole, but the exemption could be used in about 2,300 government retirement plans in other states.
``Equal treatment under Social Security is impeded when over 4,800 people are changing jobs at the last moment, and even switching from teaching to janitorial work, in order to take advantage of a loophole,'' said Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., who requested the report. Shaw said he has proposed legislation to address the problem.
The GAO said Congress should change the rules allowing the last-day exemption by setting a longer minimum time period to avoid abuses.
The Social Security Administration could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, but the GAO said the agency agreed with the report's findings.
Betcha they'd find the time if private sector workers were doing this.
This is clearly an orchestrated effort to raid Social Security. With a little investigation, I'm sure the "how to" manual could be found.
It just chaps my butt that Social Security is in danger of not being there for people who have paid thousands of dollars into it, and these folks can tap into it for $3.
Welfare frauds.
Not so. It would appear that, for this "special situation" they only need one day. Nice, right? Of course they really wouldn't like to be called the Scumbags that they are, would they?
I wish I hadn't even come to this thread and read this report. Government employees (can't really use the term "workers" as government doesn't really produce anything) are the best protected species on the planet, yet they are always manuvering for more, More... MORE!!!
Then they want layers of MORE and they double and triple dip, yet that isn't even enough. All the while they bitch about not being compensated at the level of the private sectore, while denigrating everything to do with the private sector unless it is one of them sanctified Not-For-Profit Corporations.
I'm sick of the non-competitive suckers sucking and sucking and sucking while I pay a CPA a bundle I can ill afford every year to help me reduce my self-employment income to avoid (not evade) as much of that 15.3% SS and Medicare tax. So now when I get that earnings statement they put out, my benefits are gonna be spit in the ocean! Anyway you look at it, I'm screwed and they're gettin a great retirement without bein regulated to death like I am.
I have to be Licensed, Registered, Certified, Re-Educated and multi-level fees paid just to help people buy insurance and mutual funds!!! It's pathetic!!!
When I started in this business nearly 40 years ago, all I had to give the bastards was two dollars and two Wheaties box-tops!!! Government has done this to me and I'm pist!!! (/rant)
If that seems fair to you, then I have nothing but disgust for you. Sorry.
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