Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics A fix for the SSTF

We have a presidential candidate who last night referred to GDP as a percentage. Thus he has no earthly idea what a GDP is.

I have been reading this one and submit: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html (some may find it of interest). Since SS can last another 20 years, and I will be in my grave much sooner than that I am not particularly concerned <G>

I think my problem with SS is the way many on the right think of it. They consider SS to be taking the right of the individual to take care of themselves and sustituted that right with a law that makes government force people to do the right thing (save for the future). The true conservative is one who does not believe in original sin and that humans, if given a chance, will always do the right thing. In the case of SS, for instance, they refuse to even look at the debate, at the time SS was instituted, or the documentation on the number of elders dying in the streets due to their inability to take care of themselves. That just never happened - as far as they are concerned. Its been my experience that 'serious' conservatives are willing to ignore any objective evidence which might conflict with their own preconceptions. (Social Security is just the tip of that iceburg).

All these projections may be moot: What happens if all the illegals in this country have a path to citizenship that includes SS right from the start?

Do they stop working for cash under the table and start paying into SS because that is part of the path? I think it would be an important part of any such plan.

So you end up with a slew of younger workers paying in to the fund right away.

I am not so sure that as much money as some people suggest is actually getting to the SSTF and to Treasury.

If I run a truck farm in NJ and I have a hundred illegals working for me, they must all have SSNs, but I know full well they don't have valid SSNs. So I withhold the proper taxes and give the illegals a W-2 at the end of the year, knowing full well they are not going to file tax returns because they don't have the name to go with the SSN.

So I walk off with all the withheld FICA, my side of the FICA, and all the withholding for taxes.

Multiply this times say 50,000 small businesses that have glommed onto this scheme. How much money is that?

Double entry bookkeeping sometimes really does mean keeping two sets of books.

The simplest fix for SSTF is simply remove the wage cap. It never made sense, it was just a sop to the rich in the first place. It is a moral question, really. Yes, there is an aspect of SS that is "redistributive" - but consider what it really is: insurance against old-age penury. Someone who makes $125,000 or more a year is not going to be gouged by the additional tax, nor are they going to be dependent on SS in retirement.

Another simple fix (as I've discussed in other threads) is to create a SS contribution for those who do not rely on wages for their income. It has never made sense (to me) to tie SS exclusively to wages.

With respect, Ted, I don't think your scenario holds up. If an employer accepts a fraudulent SSN for an employee, they can't just "hold" the withholdings. They run a significant risk of being caught engaging in tax fraud, and not civil but criminal penalties.

I'm not saying fraud doesn't occur, but there are billions of dollars annually that are paid into the SSTF on behalf of undocumented immigrants with no prospect of them ever collecting: Unauthorized Immigrants Paid $100 Billion Into Social Security Over Last Decade; 'Undocumented' Immigrants Pay Billions in Taxes.

Why can't they, NWP? How are they going to get caught. The illegal sees the withholdings as a sunk cost and has not intention of filing a return. The employer knows that.

Look at the cost of living in NYC. http://www.apartments.com/dorchester-towers-new-york-ny/yyers8v/ ONE bedroom -- $5100 a month. Over $60K. Is $125K income that much when you are paying HALF of it for a 1 BR? I submit to you that many if not most of the people in NYC who earn between $125K and $200K could well be living paycheck to paycheck. One paycheck away from eviction. And of that $60K plus in interest, how much can you deduct from your income taxes as if it were mortgage interest? None. How much of the RE taxes can I write off on my Schedule B as taxes paid? Twice that none is still none.

And that's 750 SF. 25 feet by 30 feet. Hell, I've got four rooms at the front of my house which are over 250 feet each, two up, two down. And then there's the rest of my place. But I live in Marion NC, where I bought a 3700 SF house for $150K. Not a lot of room for a spouse and even one child, let alone two.

As to "relying" in SS, that is a moot point. The Government has made a promise: you pay the premiums and they'll pay the insurance benefits. I rely on my SS, primarily so I don't have to dip into savings to pay my monthly bills. I could get by without it, but it would mean a belt-tightening or three.

As to the taxes on other income to support SS, well, that's pretty much what the proposal I set forth above does. It uses tax receipts to pay the SSTF a higher interest rate than is set by the overly regulated market. The taxes that pay the increase have to come from someplace. In reality the source is immaterial.

I am all in favor of doing away with most all tax deductions, including the queen of all welfare, the deduction of interest expenses for mortgage payments. The guy who rents doesn't get subsidized housing, why should the vast majority of homeowners?

In my simplified view of the world, income is income. Long termapital gains at 15%? Screw that. Carried interest? Absolutely not. Deferred income based on stock options? Nope, you pay the taxes on the value of the stock as of the day the option vests. If you sell those options for less later you can take a deduction. If you sell for more you declare ordinary income on the difference. If you get income from any source you report it as ordinary income and pay the taxes consistent with your income bracket.

It CAN happen, but it doesn't OFTEN happen for several reasons: First, there is a significant risk for not much reward. Second, every small business has to make multiple, often overlapping, tax filings and other business filings, so fraud is difficult to maintain. The bigger the operation, the more complex the undertaking would become, and the more opportunity for exposure.

People get paid under the table all the time, so of course it can happen. But once one goes to the trouble of getting social security numbers, why run the risk?

If a farm has a crop that requires 100 workers. contractors or legal employees both generate a huge paper trail the IRS can follow. Illegal employees do not and the IRS will immediately catch that. If the farmer claims he has no income (because he sold the crop for cash) the IRS gets very suspicious and checks his bank statements and life style. It just gets to be a mess to try to hide anything from the IRS on a large scale.