ET1(SS)

History:
SSA was designed from it's beginning by FDR, to be a type of insurance policy with an 'account' for each participant. Nobody ever said that for each dollar placed in that account would sit there, gain interest, and one day be accessible by you.

Fortunately their 'spending' is not really attached to the IRS' bringing in money. The Federal Budget does not come from Individual income taxes, they did not get their money from individuals before 1935, and even today it only accounts for a tiny portion of that 'money'.

I know that it is difficult to keep in mind, as everyone keeps assuming that the two are somehow attached.

Nobody is making you pay into SSA. You [or someone else on your behalf] had to 'apply' for a SSA account. They were not required to do so; you still are not required to do so.

A one-time irrevocable exclusion will stop your account and will stop you from ever paying into it ever again. Period.

You likely already know others who have done so. I know guys who have.

Since you had to 'apply' to join in the first place, and you are given to option of leaving it should you ever decide that your belief system is against it.

Also I have known and worked with numerous Ex-Patriots living overseas; that may still have their SSN accounts, but they have not paid into those accounts for decades.

So really there are multiple methods of getting out of paying into your SSA account.







Promises:
But the only promise really given is that you will receive some level of compensation when you qualify for it. No promise is given about how much that will be. It can be estimated, and the amounts are estimated, but nowhere does the SSA ever 'promise' or obligate itself to paying out a guaranteed amount to anyone.

Most Americans make the assumption that it is required.

You can get a TIN assigned to you from the IRS [taxpayer identification number (TIN)], and use it instead.

The fact that it is not require by law, and the separate fact that you must go to the SSA and make a request; both indicate to me that it is in fact voluntary.

Besides to say it is not voluntary flies in the face of the thousands of American citizens who do not have a SSN.






A few points are needed here:
1. For your SSA account to be 'mature' you will need to have contributed into it for a minimum of 40 quarters. The military has a deal that allows them to contribute at a higher rate, so a servicemember is contributing into his SSA account at the rate of 5 quarters per annum [not 4 per annum like everyone else].

2. Your individual account tracks how much you have paid into your account, and you can have a statement mailed to you detailing your account annually. I am on their mailing list and I receive my detailed account every year. It shows exactly how much I earned 'Gross' each year since I began working [1975], and how much was contributed into my account.

3. The last ten years worth of contributions are used in the calculations to determine how much your individual pension would be.

If you paid into SSA for ten years [40 quarters] and stopped earning any income that made a contribution, then the average of those ten years is used to determine how much pension you get.

If you paid into it for 47 years [18 -65], the 'last' ten years would be looked at to form an average and used to determine how much pension you get.

So in effect the first 37 years worth of contributions would be 'lost' to you. But not the last 10 years worth.

This is important to know and understand.

Because it was based on the idea that the longer you work, the more your paid, that your working career slowly gains higher salaries. So the last ten years should be your highest paid years.

If you stop working full-time at 50, and slow down, working only part-time until you turn 65; then you have screwed yourself. Because the last ten years worth of contributions will have been much less.

A big point here is that: " ... the "benefits" people get from the program really have nothing to do with what they contributed in taxes over their lifetime."



Death?:
"... If I die the day before I retire, the government simply steals the entire amount..."

True, just like if it was a private insurance policy. I never get access to the entire total that has been deposited. Nobody ever said or even implied that you would.

When you pay the policy to insure your automobile, do you expect that some day you will get a return on that money? If you paid for 40 years, and then suddenly stopped paying should they owe you some amount? They don’t.

You and I have an insurance policy, that insures us against becoming disabled and that provides us with a pension 'if' we should live to be old enough, and that provides some coverage for our widows. [This is assuming that you have never opted out of the SSA program, which anyone who truly believes it is bad, can do, and thousands have done].





Can a billionaire collect?
As a Billionaire; that means you have a Net Worth of over a billion. That does not mean anything about your income.

If during your last ten years of paying into SSA, you earn on average $1000/month and you pay into your SSA account; then you could probably expect that when you get old enough you would likely get around half that or $500/month in pension payments. If you earned $5000/month during your last ten years before becoming eligible, then you could probably expect that when you get old enough you would likely get around half that or $2500/month in pension payments.

I am not aware of anything that says if you make more than 'X' you suddenly become ineligible for your pension.

It is primarily dependant upon how much you paid into your account during the last ten years [more accurately during the last 40 quarters], before you got old enough to be eligible to begin withdrawing from the account.

Guy 'A' pays into his account, in the hopes that he will eventually get to take a pension out from his account.

To the extent that Congress has emptied that money and spent it everywhere else, it has been 're-distributed'. But those re-distributions were done to government projects [building monuments and museums and roads, etc].




Insurance:
You pay into the system some 'extra' amount, as insurance against the possibility that you become disabled somewhere along the way. Should be get disabled at 50, then your contributions from age 39 - 49 are used to determine your level of pension. It was also made to be insurance against your poor widow, who out lives you by 50 years, and can apply for a pension from your account at 50% of the rate you would have gotten.





Raided:
But the fund was raided to build highways, then when the voters did not complain it was raided again.
And Congress voted to allow others who had not paid into it, to begin withdrawing benefits, but that was years later. And even later congress again voted to open the floodgates wider to even more peoples, and again and ... To the point where it can no longer support itself.

It is a system that was supposed to be self-supporting; we get out of it what you put into it. NO tax money is used at all. The only reason that tax money may be used in the future is because the SSA money [which was supposed to have been invested] has been borrowed against by congress.

I certainly recognize that it has become screwed up. Every government program gets messed up, once congress gets their hands into it.





Beliefs:
If your belief system is such that SSA insurance is wrong or in anyway against your beliefs, then file a 'Form 4029' "Exemption from ... for members of such a religious sect" form, or a form 4361 for "general members of various sects", or a Form 2031 for "the clergy of any of various sects".

This 'Exemption' is irrevocable, once claimed then the money in your account is lost, your account is wiped, and you can no longer go back and get it again.

I have assisted many to claim this for themselves. It works.

You can opt out of SSA, and not just ministers. If you truly have a 'belief' that the system is wrong and it does not hurt to belong to a church that makes it formal doctrine. Or just join one.

Ministers of most American denominations are eligible including: Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Mennonites, Prespitarians, Church of Christ, JWs, LDS, ...

As a non-clergy:
IF this is truly your belief,
IF you truly belief that you do not need the government's help,
IF you truly believe that you and those of your community are self-sufficient;
then you are in fact a very close mind set with a list of previously established churches.




Statements:
I get my account statements annually. They show the status of my account. Everyone calls it an account, they call it an account, it is in my name and nobody else can draw a pension from my account.

I believe that information on how to do things within our government is vital to the public. Without knowing how to do things, the public assumes that 'such and such' is impossible; not knowing the truth. This lack of knowledge makes the USA into being a tyranny, but it is often the fault of the public.

I also recommend that you read "the millionaire next door". It was a best seller for a couple years. Most millionaire in America are first generation wealth, few inherit money. Of those that do inherit money, most lose it within one generation. Most millionaires are businessmen, who file their own taxes. They do NOT work for someone else, thus having taxes taken from their paycheck.