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Are Fees, Fraud Eating Away at Your Social Security?
The U.S. Treasury Department has come under fire recently for a cost-cutting initiative to eliminate paper checks in disbursement of federal benefit payments. Recipients of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income have been required to switch to direct deposit or prepaid…
Beware of “Social Security” Facebook phishing scams
Hijacked Facebook Fan Pages are a great asset to online spammers and scammers, so it’s no wonder that at any given time there are a number of active phishing campaigns aimed at their administrators. Read more… Notice: The “Read…
Robert P. Burns: Don’t balance America’s books on the backs of retirees
John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Sixty million Americans either in or near retirement walked the walk: They showed what they could do…
Got Severance? Employment Tax Applies For Some, Not Others
Of course, severance pay is fully taxable for income tax purposes, and it is subject to income tax withholding. The question is whether it is also subject to payroll taxes like Social Security tax. You might assume so, and that’s certainly what…
Find, fix and prevent disability fraud
Regarding the June 28 Metro article “Judges tell Congress of pressure to award disability benefits”:The number of Social Security disability claims has increased greatly over the past decade, with 11 million people now receiving benefits averaging $13,500 per year. This calculates…
Hot Line: New scam scares seniors
“Please warn your people about this nasty scheme that’s taking personal identification information from senior citizens,” an email from a reader in another county began. “It’s so bad it’s almost unbelievable, but it happened to my (female relative) and I…
Save now to secure your future
We seem to find ourselves caught up in a Great American Conundrum. We have become a consumer-based economy which only prospers when Americans spend money on all the latest and greatest consumer stuff. But spending money on endless quantities of…
On (and on and on) the job
Despite reaching Social Security age, a generation is finding the new secret to a happy retirement: Don’t. Denise Dabney loves her job as lead planner in the Mayor’s Office of Jobs & Community Services for the City of Boston. It’s just that…
Welfare abusers are stealing from taxpayers
So many things in today’s society have been bastardized and twisted from its original intent. Included is welfare with its many forms and its many cheating abusers. The many welfare forms have now been so engrossed that it takes a higher…
Can you afford to retire? Ever?
“Take this job and shove it. I ain’t working here no more,” sang Johnny Paycheck in his great musical groan about working life.Lots of us hope to croon that tune to the boss one day, and we wonder just how…