I did a foolish thing the other day.
I sent my local Social Security Administration office a letter. In this letter, I asked how I might go through the process of opting out of Social Security.
And I meant it. I just want out. I don’t want Social Security checks when (if) I retire. I don’t want their brand of disability “insurance.”
I don’t want any of it. I even gave them what I consider to be a pretty fair deal. I told them in the letter that I would lay no claim to the wages they have already taken from me. The 12.5% of my income they’ve already taken is gone, and there’s no sense in asking for it back. After all, I hadn’t yet asked to opt out of their program, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask for it back.
I’m a reasonable person.
I figure I’ve paid the Social Security Administration somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 of my earnings so far – but I lay no claim to this princely sum. Consider it a gift, Uncle Sam.
I just asked to be let out of this social contract – I don’t pay anymore of my money into their program, and they scrub my name from their beneficiary list.
Now, I readily admit that I wrote this letter for entirely selfish reasons. But they started me down this road when they sent me a letter this past February. In this letter they sent me, I believe they already admitted that our contract is forfeit.
In it, they wrote:
In 2016 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2037 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted and there will be enough money to pay only about 76 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits.
So, you can see how I might be concerned. It sounds to me like the Administration is planning on BREAKING its side of this contract. Never mind the legality of forcing me into this contract in the first place, or the morality of letting this “Trust Fund” bleed into the coffers of other facets of Government.
They outright just told me that they will not have the means to honor the contract they forced me into.
In any other real world situation, I could opt out of this contract on the basis that the other party freely admits they have no ability to honor it. I might even be compensated for the time and money I’ve put into the fund, or not. But in any event, there isn’t a court of law in this land that would hold me to this very same contract that I now seek to break free of today.
By the way, I’m 30 years old. I’ll be extremely lucky if I can retire at the age of 57, when the Administration says they’ll begin cutting back benefit payments. When I retire, it’s likely that the benefits will be even further cut. But to be honest, I have zero faith that Social Security will last even until 2037. That’s besides the point.
So, I wrote my foolish and admittedly selfish letter.
And I received a response:
This is in response to your letter asking if you can opt out of Social Security. The answer is no.
I received this response in an extremely timely fashion from someone named Tara Scopa at the Social Security Administration Office in Montpelier, VT.
And it gives me great pleasure to say it, Ms. Scopa, but you are 100% wrong.
I can opt out of Social Security tomorrow. I can stop paying the 12.5 cents of each dollar to you and your government. I can end this unfair, illegal, immoral seizure of my property. I can stop paying you. I should stop paying you.
And to do so would be difficult, but make no mistake: it’s within the realm of possibilities.
For anyone who is reading this who wants to opt out of Social Security, here’s what you have to do.
You have to renounce your citizenship. Here’s how:
A person wishing to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship must voluntarily and with intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship:
- appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
- in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate); and
- sign an oath of renunciation
When you renounce your citizenship, it would be a good idea to have a plan in place to become a naturalized citizen of the country where you perform the renunciation. You should also not expect to return to the United States without going through a rigorous visa process.
There’s another way to opt out of Social Security – and that’s to become a tax cheat. In order to do so, you would need to be self-employed and operate a cash-only business, or become a contractor and simply falsify your taxes to avoid paying into the Social Security fund.
To be honest, neither of these options are very attractive. I realize the difficulty of most Americans to pursue either one of them. But I wonder how much longer these options will remain unattractive when the alternative is to pay more than 1/8th of your wages into a failing system, with absolutely ZERO recourse for opting out in a legal way.
How much longer will people like me put up with this wholesale theft? How much longer will people like Tara Scopa tell us what we can or can’t do? Wouldn’t it be beneficial to let ANYONE opt out of this program today – if it will soon become untenable?