A Puerto Rican who lived in New York for years and then moved back to the U.S. island territory has his Social Security income cancelled, and gets forced to pay back $28,000. The Supreme Court (8-1) agrees with the government, saying if you don’t have to pay all the federal taxes, you don’t necessarily get all the benefits. But Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissents, claiming that if the amount of tax contribution is the qualifier, perhaps poor stateside Americans (or poor states) should lose benefits as well. Are you next on the chopping block?
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16 replies on “Are You Next? Supreme Court Takes Federal Social Security Income Away from Puerto Ricans”
First of all, if we paid him and he hadn’t defrauded us, it’s our fault and we shouldn’t ask for it back.
Being exempted from taxes completely on the basis of where you live is not the same thing as being exempted from them on the basis of how much you make.
Bing bing bing! That’s what they want. Another Democrat state.
The question is, what is the law? I don’t think this is a constitutional issue that the Supreme Court should be deciding, unless it is interpreting a federal law.
If not, it’s Congress’ job to fix it.
The 3/5ths clause was a compromise between the abolitionists and the slave states. The slave states wanted to count their slaves as population for representation as one whole person — and yet withhold their right to liberty and voting. This would have given slave states a LOT more votes in congress … votes which would be used to perpetuate slavery. The abolitionists countered with something to water it down at least a little.
Frankly it was passed because we needed the southern states to defeat the British (who exported slavery here in the first place). Slavery itself is so diametrically opposed to the spirit of the Constitution that it had to be abolished. We paid the price, as a nation — for this compromise ~90 years later.
Yay! Dane-Geld reference. If you want to hear the full poem, click here. Dane-Geld, Kipling – YouTube
Not subjected to taxation? Reap no benefits from said taxation. It’s a simple enough equation.
That being said, stop government programs to pick winners and losers via taxation.
Even poor American’s are subject to all federal taxes. The fact that their income may be low enough to preclude them from having to pay them is different than not being required to pay them at all, regardless of income. I’m not surprised the “wise Latina” doesn’t understand the difference. I am subject to capital gains taxes even though I may not have any gains, which is different than not ever having to pay capital gains taxes even if I had some.
I’ll have to look up more info on this. I’m not understanding why they’re asking him to pay it back. If he lived and worked in NYC and paid into the SS program while there, then he should be getting those payments regardless of where he lives. He could move to an Italian villa and still get those payments, because it’s not supposed to be about where you live while cashing the checks, it’s supposed to be about where you lived while paying into the SS system. I’m not getting why this became about Puerto Rico and their residents half status as citizens.
Okay, upon further reading on scotusblog.com, I found that even though this is being called social security, the man was collecting SSI. It’s a different fund and you don’t pay into it like you do the Social Security system. It’s the Supplemental Security Income that Puerto Ricans can’t collect. PR does pay into Social Security, so I wonder if the same person can apply for those payments instead. Strange situation.
That answers the question I had of “if he was working in the US, why wasn’t he paying in on payroll taxes?”
That would also undercut the Justice’s question of whether poor people or “those icky, low tax red” poor states would not get all of the benefits either.
Right, my thought too. It makes sense about SSI, from a legal point of view, since PR doesn’t pay the Federal Income tax that fills that fund. Asking the guy to pay the money back is kind of useless, though. He’s poor and disabled. How exactly does the government think this will happen? The argument that this could happen to poor red states doesn’t seem likely. Those states are fully part of the US and pay all the federally mandated taxes, unlike Puerto Rico. PR’s limbo status is weird. We gave them their independence to a point, but still make them pay some of our taxes. They can vote in some elections, but don’t get their own voting rep. I’m sure we funnel money to their government, since we do to nearly all governments in the world, lol.
Since I didn’t read the item I don’t know what the Justice’s basis was for asking if red states or poor people should not get a portion of benefits. Maybe her understanding of economics is as thin as most.
IIRC, we do send a bunch of money to PR for things as they are a part of the US, and some stink was made after a hurricane hit the island and a lot of the money went missing. The Usual Suspects were complaining that the evil Trump’s FEMA wasn’t helping because of the Usual Reasons.. at least until it was found the governor (I think that was the title) had passed some of the money around to cronies (and said official did step down after that was found and proven).
Also to add, I think the ‘ask him to pay it back’ is just what always happens when payments are made that should not have been. Whether there is an actual ability to repay is entirely separate. I would guess that had the guy any money (upon his death at least) the government would attempt to claim it in taxes and the heirs would not have anything, but I’m guessing if he has moved back “home” he is either living in assisted living or with family and thus owns or has not all that much to his name.
Is the “social security” system good or bad? I’m not going to go into that here. I’m biased. However, I do believe that the social security system was put on the slippery slope to complete collapse when they began to allow people who never paid into it and who never were going to pay into it to start drawing funds out of it. That, and the government decided that the monies that were put aside for the SS payments people were owed could be replaced by government IOU’s.
To paraphrase Bill – The US Federal Gov’t does not levy taxes so that they can provide services; they provide a few services to justify collecting lots of taxes.
I would like to offer a fair trade. Puerto Rico gets to become a state. In exchange, Texas gets to leave.
But what about the rest of us? Also, what about splitting California into two or more states? Keep LA and San Francisco (maybe San Jose) in one. Do that, and any other state will be red instead of blue. Maybe do the same to New York.
I usually don’t like politics, but I would run for office in the Independent Republic of Texas!
My platform:
String defense of 1A & 2A rights, BLM and Pantifa treated like feral hogs. Open season and bounties paid. Wall off Houston and Austin until they get their shirt together!
Who’s with me?