From Emergency Message EM-24019:
... Effective May 13, 2024, we are updating the administrative waiver tolerance policy to improve customer service, reduce the burden to overpaid individuals, and increase front-line staff efficiency. We are implementing the following changes: ...
· Increased the administrative waiver tolerance amount from $1,000 to $2,000 for Title II and Title XVI. ...
What does this mean? It means that if you have an overpayment below $2,000 it will now be waived pretty much automatically -- as long as you ask for waiver.
22 comments:
SSA must think they have a money to burn when in fact it’s the opposite.
The bigger question is why notify the public of the higher tolerance level?
Why indeed. Because this is a non-adversarial process according to the Federal statutes under which it is administered.
It’s not automatic…just streamlined.
This is a welcome change. 11:11 is right, it's just streamlined. We get lots of these little nit picky overpayments because an SSI spouse's wage goes up one month. As the regulation stated, the claimant still has to request the waiver.
An administrative tolerance waiver applies to an overpayment if:
1) There is no indication that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment, and
2) The original amount of the overpayment at issue was less than or equal to the administrative tolerance limit (previously $1,000, now $2,000). In the case of multiple overpayments with a household, the sum of the original overpayments to all overpaid claimants within that household must be less than or equal to the tolerance limit.
If both of these facts apply, the overpayment can be waived under the administrative tolerance rules without development of ability to repay. The technical basis for granting of the waiver is that recovery would impede efficient administration of the Social Security Act.
The tolerance limit hasn't been updated for quite a few years now (the $1,000 limit has applied for around 20 years or more), so this is a welcome administrative change.
As to why he is releasing the information, it is for PR purposes. The existence of the administrative tolerance waiver isn't classified by the agency as sensitive information (it is published in the public POMS under GN 02250.350) so he is free to do so.
Errrr. . .no. . .if the beneficiary is at fault the waiver will still be denied.
Correct
@3:40pm,
2:02pm here. You are right - I just mis-typed what I meant. i.e. claimant is not at fault.
I believe the public has the right to know the program rules. SSA's regs are not secret and are available on ssa.gov via the public POMS and the Handbook.
Good move by the Commissioner. It is a waste of resources to try to collect these overpayments for small amounts, to go through endless waiver and recon requests,
As an aside, Nancy Pelosi visited SSA HQ yesterday. She gave a short speech to employees who came to welcome her. She had Commissioner O'Malley at her side.
It is nice for SSA employees to see people who care about SSA, who respect the work we do, in charge.
When did $2000 become a small amount?
@ 12:14
You have to compare the cost in limited staff resources, the value of the overpayment, and the likelihood of ever collecting it. So yes, $2,000 or less can be a small(er) amount if it costs the taxpayer more than that on average to collect it. That's smart management and good stewardship of public funds.
The IRS are hiring more tax auditors to go after taxpayers that have been under the radar due to lack of funding at the agency. This is more cost effective for the IRS and taxpayers. I’m hopeful that SSA takes note and sends the message to Congress for additional funding.
Right, if that were my $2000 specifically, I'd want to know somebody cared to know we did what we could to recover it. Quite frankly more staffing would put us in the position to try to do the best thing, instead of just rewriting all the rules to try and be functional. Some of these new policies are effectively throwing in the towel. "Well, we suck, no sense in trying."
"It shouldn't cost $2000 to recover an OP. I mean just being honest how many man hours go into a collection attempt? It's not high. Only when these OPs go through multiple appeals should we have reached the threshold of being ineffective or inefficient. For most smaller OPs, we don't generally struggle to collect. Even a high enough percentage of SSI recipients simply agree to limited collection rates.
Well, we're going to get a lot more requests when people know we are just giving money away these days. Most people like the free lunch. The benefit of being difficult is many people will simply never try. I'm not saying that is completely right. Doing good work with appropriate expectations from the custo
Yes, that is ultimately the best answer - effective administration rather than simply giving up.
We need effective administration of the program rules including meaningful notification to claimants regarding their responsibility to report changes. The problem people have with overpayments is SSA's inability to catch the mistakes early (in part due to staffing issues), thereby creating large overpayments. Catch someone one month, reduce their benefit, inform them of their responsibility to report, make it easier to report, log the changes in a timely manner, etc., etc. People should not be held responsible for the inability of SSA to administer their programs in a reasonable way. The focus should not be on collection, it should be on making sure the correct amount of benefits go out each month. Period.
@12:09pm,
You are presuming it is used much more often than it is. It really isn't used that much.
Agency employees only apply the tolerance IF a waiver is requested. We are prohibited from either granting a waiver without it being requested first or from soliciting a waiver from an overpaid person for purposes of granting it. We ALWAYS try to negotiate repayment first, as repayment at even a very low rate over time better benefits the trust funds than does granting a waiver.
However, some people will always insist on filing a waiver request. Which is fine, because it is their right to do so under the law.
Given the overpaid person has to both not be in any way at fault in causing the overpayment AND the original balance of the overpayment must be $2,000 or less limits the situations where the administrative tolerance provision is applicable. If either condition is not true, full waiver development is required no matter the amount of the overpayment.
The largest percentage of tolerance waivers are granted when the agency retroactively entitles within the prospective life of their application a new beneficiary on an existing record, causing the prior entitled beneficiaries to be overpaid after consideration of provisions like 202(j). A smaller percentage will sometimes apply to annual earnings test cases where the claimant genuinely did not understand the AET (and most of those go back to misunderstandings about what types of income counts towards the AET, gross vs net income, how and when the agency counts income as earned, and situations where a claimant legitimately gets overpaid due to reasons beyond their control such as receiving an unexpected bonus at retirement, etc).
In short, tolerance waivers are only granted in very specifically defined instances for administrative efficiency. They aren't requested and granted on everything willy nilly like you seem to be inferring they are.
@12:05 I can't remember where I saw it, but I do remember seeing an assessment that putting on an ALJ hearing costs SSA over $2K in staff time and other resources.
Can anyone provide a working link for Emergency Message EM-24019?
I am unable to find it anywhere including on SSA's website for Emergency Messages (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/reference.nsf/instructiontypecode!openview&restricttocategory=EM)
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