Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2008/12/09/E8-28618/technical-revisions-to-the-supplemental-security-income-ssi-regulations-on-income-and-resources
Timestamp: 2017-08-22 00:21:23
Document Index: 550939363

Matched Legal Cases: ['§\u2009519', '§\u2009210', '§\u2009203', '§\u200924', '§\u20091613', '§\u2009431', 'art 416', '§\u2009416', '§\u20091324', '§\u20091', '§\u20091', 'art 416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', 'art 416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009404', '§\u2009404', 'art 416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416', '§\u2009416']

A Proposed Rule by the Social Security Administration on 12/09/2008
To be sure that we consider your comments, we must receive them no later than February 9, 2009.
74663-74666 (4 pages)
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001, Public Law 106-554
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, Public Law 107-16 (EGTRRA)
Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (SSPA), Public Law 108-203
Amendment to the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, Public Law 109-64
Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Public Law 106-398
Domestic Violence Resource Exclusion
Revisions to Appendix Subpart K—Income Excluded by Federal Laws Other Than the Act
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/E8-28618 https://www.federalregister.gov/d/E8-28618
We propose to amend our Supplemental Security Income (SSI) regulations by making technical revisions to our rules on income and resources. Many of these revisions reflect legislative changes found in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA), an amendment to the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, and the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (SSPA). We further propose to amend the SSI home exclusion rules to extend the home exclusion to individuals who, because of domestic abuse, leave a home that would otherwise be an excludable resource. Finally, we propose to update our “conditional-payment” rule to eliminate the liquid resource requirement as a prerequisite to receiving conditional payments.
You may submit comments by any one of four methods—Internet, facsimile, regular mail, or hand-delivery. Commenters should not submit the same comments multiple times or by more than one method. Regardless of which of the following methods you choose, please state that your comments refer to Docket No. SSA 2008-0034 to ensure that we can associate your comments with the correct regulation:
1. Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov. (This is the most expedient method for submitting your comments, and we strongly urge you to use it.) In the “Search Documents” section of the Web page, type “SSA 2008-0034”, select “Go,” and then click “Send a Comment or Submission.” The Federal eRulemaking portal issues you a tracking number when you submit a comment.
The primary goal of the SSI program is to ensure a minimum level of income to people who are age 65 or older, blind, or disabled, and who have limited income and resources. The law provides that SSI payments can be made only to people who have income and resources below specified amounts. Therefore, an individual's income and resources are major factors in deciding whether the individual is eligible to receive SSI payments and in computing the amount of those payments.
This law amended section 1612(a)(1) of the Social Security Act (the Act) (42 U.S.C. 1382a(a)(1)) to change how we treat statutory employees under the SSI program. See Public Law 106-554, app. A, § 519 (Dec. 21, 2000). Statutory employees are certain independent contractors, including agent-drivers or commission-drivers, certain full-time life insurance salespersons, home workers, and traveling or city salespersons. Act at § 210(j)(3) (42 U.S.C. 410(j)(3)). We consider such individuals, by statute, to be employees, rather than self-employed independent contractors, for wage and income purposes. Previously, we treated statutory employees the same as employees for SSI eligibility and payment-amount purposes. For such employees, we considered their wages as their earned income. After this change to the Act, we now count as earned income the net earnings of self-employed individuals, including statutory employees, thereby allowing them to deduct business expenses before calculating their income. This provision became effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2001.
The EGTRRA excludes the payment of a refundable child tax credit (CTC) from income for purposes of eligibility for public benefits funded in whole or part with Federal funds. Public Law 107-16, § 203, 115 Stat. 49 (June 7, 2001) (referring to Internal Revenue Code § 24, 26 U.S.C. 24). Such a payment is also excluded from resources for these purposes during the month the payment is received and the following month. This change became effective for SSI purposes for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2001.
The SSPA amended the Act to create a uniform 9-month resource exclusion period for certain tax refunds and for any unspent portion of past-due Social Security and SSI payments. Act at § 1613(a)(7) (42 U.S.C. 1382b(a)(7)), as amended by Public Law 108-203, § 431 (Mar. 2, 2004). This amendment Start Printed Page 74664expands the exclusion established by the EGTRRA discussed above. In accordance with this provision, we published final rules in the Federal Register at 70 FR 41,135 (July 18, 2005), amending our resource exclusion rules at title 20, chapter III, part 416, subpart L of the Code of Federal Regulations. When we amended the regulations, we included this exclusion under § 416.1236(a), titled “Exclusions from resources; provided by other statutes” and added a new paragraph (24). As this exclusion is now required by the Act itself, we propose to amend our rules so that they correctly reflect the source of this exclusion.
The National Flood Insurance Act provides that payments made for flood mitigation activities are not counted as income or resources when determining eligibility and benefit amounts for any Federal means-tested program. National Flood Insurance Act, § 1324, as amended by Public Law 109-64, § 1 (Jan. 7, 2005). Effective October 1, 2005, this provision applies to SSI eligibility and payment-amount determinations.
In October 2000, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was established. Public Law 106-398, § 1, app., title XXXVI (Oct. 30, 2000) (section 1 adopting as Appendix H.R. 5408). Section 3646 of the Appendix provided that medical benefits and compensation payments made under the EEOICPA are not counted as income or resources for purposes of determining eligibility to receive, or for determining the amount of, certain Federal benefits, including SSI. This provision became effective on July 31, 2001.
Section 1613(a)(1) of the Act excludes from resources an individual's home and associated land. Regulations provide that the home is excluded so long as it serves as the individual's principal place of residence or the individual maintains an active intent to return to the residence. The home also is not counted as a resource, regardless of the individual's intent to return, if the individual resides in an institution and a spouse or dependent relative continues to maintain residence in the home during the period of institutionalization.
Advocacy groups have expressed concern regarding the counting of a home as a resource in instances where a victim of domestic abuse leaves the home and resides elsewhere. We agree with these concerns because, currently, an individual fleeing from domestic abuse may return to a potentially dangerous home environment simply to avoid losing SSI because of an ownership interest in the home. Therefore, we intend to amend our rules to address these concerns and provide that, when an individual has fled his or her home and provides evidence of domestic abuse, the home would remain an excludable resource despite the fleeing individual's physical absence from, and continuing ownership interest in, the home. This exclusion would continue until such time as the individual establishes a new principal place of residence or otherwise takes action rendering the home no longer excludable. This change would eliminate the need for SSA to develop a domestic abuse victim's intent to return and eliminate a potential financial disincentive to those attempting to leave an abusive situation.
Section 1613(b) of the Act, titled “Disposition of Resources,” gives the Agency broad authority to establish conditional-payment rules by regulation. Under this authority, we have created an exception to our ordinary resource rules. Part 416, subpart L, § 416.1240—§ 416.1245. This exception allows us to pay monthly SSI payments in certain circumstances when an individual possesses excess non-liquid resources. Individuals who meet all but the resource requirements for SSI may have little or nothing on which to live if most of their resources are non-liquid and difficult to convert to cash. The conditional-payment provision is used to provide individuals a period of time in which to sell such non-liquid resources and convert them to cash. We condition these payments on the individual's written agreement to sell excess non-liquid resources during that period and repay the conditional payments with the proceeds.
A prerequisite for receiving conditional payments is that the individual may not have countable liquid resources in excess of one-fourth the annual Federal benefit rate (FBR), which we commonly refer to as “3 times the monthly FBR.” The original purpose of the liquid-resource limit was to ensure that the individual truly needed the conditional-payment period. Because the disposal period for non-liquid resources other than real property is 3 months, we assumed that if the individual did not have liquid resources equal to 3 months worth of SSI payments, he had inadequate resources for day-to-day expenses and needed to dispose of some non-liquid resources for support. Conversely, if the individual had liquid resources worth more than three times the FBR, then he had adequate resources and did not need conditional payments.
Originally, 3 months worth of SSI payments was equal to only about 32% of the resource limit. However, since we established this rule over 30 years ago, the FBR has increased annually and the resource limit has grown slowly or not at all. The difference between the statutory resource limit and 3 times the FBR is now negligible—3 times the FBR now equals $1,911 or 96% of the resource limit. In 2009 the limit on liquid resources for conditional payments will exceed the statutory limit on total resources and therefore become meaningless. Accordingly, we are proposing to eliminate the liquid-resource test as a prerequisite for receiving conditional payments. Eliminating this requirement will simplify our conditional-payments provision.
We propose the following changes to our rules on determining income and resources under the SSI program.
We propose revising § 416.1110(b) to update the definition of net earnings from self-employment to include the earnings of statutory employees, as provided under section 519 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001.
At the end of part 416, subpart K, we maintain an appendix, which lists types of income excluded under the SSI program as provided by Federal laws other than the Act. We update this list periodically; however, we apply the law in effect due to changes in Federal statutes, whether or not the list in the appendix has been amended to reflect the statutory changes. We propose revising the appendix to subpart K by adding three new paragraphs under the heading “V. Other,” which set forth SSI income exclusions as follows:
New paragraph (m) would reflect the exclusion of a payment of a refundable CTC made to an individual under section 24 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as provided in section 203 Start Printed Page 74665of the EGTRRA, Public Law 107-16, 26 U.S.C. 24 note;
New paragraph (n) would reflect the exclusion of payments made for flood mitigation activities pursuant to section 1324 of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4031), as added by Public Law 109-64;
New paragraph (o) would reflect the exclusion of payments made to individuals under the EEOICPA of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 7385e).
We propose amending § 416.1235, which currently refers to an exclusion of the earned income tax credit, by revising this section to read “Exclusion of certain payments related to tax tax credits.” This section would contain exclusions for payments related to the earned income credit and a new paragraph describing the exclusion for the payment of a refundable CTC, which is currently in our rules at § 416.1236(a)(24).
Section 416.1210 provides a list of general resources that we do not count when determining SSI eligibility. We propose adding a new paragraph (v) to describe the exclusion for the payment of a refundable CTC, with a reference to § 416.1235.
Section 416.1236(a) lists resource exclusions in the SSI program provided by other statutes. We propose removing current paragraph (24) from this section, which excludes from resources the payment of a refundable CTC, and we propose adding this exclusion to § 416.1235. We propose adding a new paragraph (24) and adding paragraph (25) to respectively reflect the exclusions of payments for flood mitigation activities made pursuant to section 1324 of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4031) and payments made to individuals under the EEOICPA of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 7385e).
We also propose adding a new paragraph to § 416.1212 to extend the home exclusion to victims of domestic abuse who flee an abusive situation, but maintain an ownership interest in an otherwise excluded home. This exclusion would continue until the individual establishes a new principal place of residence or takes other action rendering the home no longer excludable.
Finally, our current rule at § 416.1240(a)(1) provides that, as a prerequisite to qualifying for conditional payments, an individual's total countable liquid resources may not exceed one-fourth the annual FBR. We propose amending § 416.1240(a) to eliminate the limitation on liquid resources within our SSI conditional-payment rule.
(b) Net earnings from self-employment. Net earnings from self-employment are your gross income from any trade or business that you operate, less allowable deductions for that trade or business. Net earnings also include your share of profit or loss in any partnership to which you belong. For taxable years beginning before January 1, 2001, net earnings from self-employment under the SSI program are the same net earnings that we would count under the social security retirement insurance program and that you would report on your Federal income tax return. (See § 404.1080 of this chapter.) For taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2001, net earnings from self-employment under the SSI program will also include the earnings of statutory employees. In addition, for SSI purposes only, we consider statutory employees to be self-employed individuals. Statutory employees are agent- or commission-drivers, certain full-time life insurance salespersons, home workers, and traveling or city salespersons. (See § 404.1008 of this chapter for a more Start Printed Page 74666detailed description of these types of employees.)
3. Amend the appendix to subpart K of part 416 by adding new paragraphs (m), (n), and (o) under Part V as follows:
(o) Payments made to individuals under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, pursuant to section 1 [Div. C, Title XXXVI, section 3646] of Public Law 106-398 (114 Stat. 1654A-510, 42 U.S.C. 7385e).
5. Amend § 416.1210 by adding a comma in the introductory sentence after “(and spouse, if any)”, removing “and” from the end of paragraph (t), replacing the period at the end of paragraph (u) with a semicolon followed by “and”, and adding a new paragraph (v) as follows:
A. Redesignating current paragraphs (d) through (g) as (e) through (h);
B. Adding a new paragraph (d) to read as set forth below;
C. Amending newly designated paragraph (e)(2)(ii), by removing the reference “paragraph (e)” and adding the reference “paragraph (f)” in its place;
D. Amending newly designated paragraph (e)(2)(iii), by removing the reference “paragraph (f)” and adding the reference “paragraph (g)” in its place; and
E. Amending newly designated paragraph (f), by removing the reference “paragraph (d)(2)(ii) of this section” and adding the reference, “paragraph (e)(2)(iii) of this section” in its place, and by removing the reference “paragraph (f)” and adding the reference “paragraph (g)” in its place.
(b) Any unspent funds described in paragraph (a) that are retained until the first moment of the tenth month following their receipt are subject to resource counting at that time.
(c) Exception: For any payments described in paragraph (a) received before March 2, 2004, we will exclude for the month following the month of receipt the unspent portion of any such payment.
8. Amend § 416.1236 by revising paragraph (a) (24) and adding new paragraph (a) (25) to read as follows:
(25) Payments made to individuals under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, pursuant to section 1 [Div. C. Title XXXVI, section 3646] of Public Law 106-398 (114 Stat. 1654A-510, 42 U.S.C. 7385e).
9. Amend § 416.1240 by revising paragraph (a) to read as follows:
[FR Doc. E8-28618 Filed 12-8-08; 8:45 am]