US-India Social Security Agreement Negotiations Resume

     After a gap of five years, the United States and India have resumed negotiations on a Social Security agreement. The United States has Social Security agreements with 25 nations. These typically seek to avoid double taxation of income for transnational employees and to provide for cooperation between Social Security agencies. You can actually file a claim for German social security benefits through a Social Security field office in the United States, for instance. 

     India's Social Security system covers only a small percentage of the country's population and isn't remotely comparable to those of the nations with whom the United States has a Social Security agreement. However, India's economy is booming and there are large numbers of Indian nationals working in the United States and a fair number of American nationals working in India.

     These negotiations may seem unimportant to Americans but they seem quite important to some Indians. Whenever I've posted anything about negotiations on a Social Security agreement with India, this blog has received a ton of hits from India.