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I would like to tell you a little story that really makes my blood boil over this issue - my sister started working at around age 15. She took an early retirement from GM after working there 32 years. She died 3 weeks ago at the age of 60 - two years shy of receiving SS benefits. All this money that she contributed for all those years does not go to her family - the government gets it all - now I read that this money that she worked hard for will probably go to illegals in this country. This kind of crap has to stop !!!

EXCERPT: Some Immigrants Are Offering Social Security Numbers for Rent

NY Times | 6/7/2005 | EDUARDO PORTER

Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number. Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico....he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."

Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market....undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border.

Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund...........The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund. Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border.

"Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park, Calif.

The income tax "refund" is almost certainly generated by Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) fraud, which as a "legal resident" the number renter would qualify to receive, especially if they have have or claim children. The EITC is a "refundable tax credit, which means the IRS will pay it out even if no taxes have been withheld or paid in. So the IRS gives filers who claim the EITC "refunds," even if they have had no taxes withheld.

These number renters can claim up to $4,400 for the 2005 tax year in EITC "refunds," most of the number renters probably claim this maximum refund. The Additional Child Tax Credit is another "refundable" credit which is no doubt routinely claimed by these renters.

For 2005, if the number renter claimed $14,400 in wage income, and three children, between the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit the renter would, without having any taxes withheld from wages, receive a tax "refund" of $4,898, plus have $892 credited to Social Security; in addition to the potential of thousands of dollars in California unemployment compensation.

All this money that she contributed for all those years does not go to her family - the government gets it all

I'm very sorry to hear about your sister. You and the rest of your family have my sympathies. The issue with SS is an old one and is exactly what Bush was trying to resolve by getting people to own at least 2% of their SS. Unfortunately, most Americans are too dumb to understand that by privatizing as much as 2% of their SS, they would own it and, if they died before their benefit expired, their heirs would get the remainder. Hopefully, all of this will, one day, force a paradigm change in the way that SS is handled.

my sister started working at around age 15. She took an early retirement from GM after working there 32 years. She died 3 weeks ago at the age of 60 - two years shy of receiving SS benefits. All this money that she contributed for all those years does not go to her family - the government gets it all

Social Security as designed by FDR is supposed to work this way. It's a pyramid scheme where the majority of contributors were expected to die before the payout age. The reason Social Security is "broke" today is because the median lifespan has increased far beyond the payout age.

The pyramid is now upside down with more payees than payors and will collapse.

Social Security has been a tax payer rip off since the day it was instituted. I'm sorry you are just now realizing it.