Social Security: More Must Be Done to Credit Earnings to Individuals' Accounts.
Abstract
Individuals' Social Security benefits and the amount of tax money the Social Security trust funds are entitled to are based on the earnings recorded in individuals' Social Security accounts. If the Social Security Administration (SSA) fails to record all or part of an individual's annual earnings, the Social Security benefits it calculates for such individuals could be too low and the trust funds would be entitled to all the tax revenue. For this report, GAO sought to determine (1) the effectiveness of the process for identifying and resolving instances where employers may not have reported all or part of employees' earnings and (2) the effect any uncredited earnings might have on individuals' Social Security benefits and the trust funds. Employers report employees' earnings to SSA and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) at different times and for different purposes. IRS compares the annual total employers reported to SSA with the total of the quarterly earnings employers reported to IRS. Subsequently, IRS tells SSA which employers may not have reported any or all earnings to SSA. Contacts with the employers are frequently necessary to determine whether all earnings were reported. If SSA finds that it has not recorded some employees' earnings, it corrects those accounts.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA187232
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office