When you are going through the application process to receive SSI it can be quite daunting.
You want to ensure that you provide all the information needed as promptly and as accurately as possible. You may well be wondering how they can confirm your income.
Sure, you can tell them how much income you have coming in, but this is not enough proof, surely? You’re right!
To confirm that what you are telling them about your income is true, the people over at SSI will check your bank statements for confirmation.
This will ensure that anyone who has withheld income or given false information is caught.
In this article, we explore why they do that, how much money you are allowed in your bank, how far back they look at your bank statements, and how often SSI can check them.
Yes! The SSI does indeed look at your bank statements.
It is a necessity when you are applying for SSI. The reason they do this is that they need to figure out exactly what income you have coming in and if it matches up with what you have told them.
When you file your claim at SSI, you will be asked to give specific permission for them (them being the Social Security Administration or SSA) to access your financial records, including bank accounts.
They do this by using its AFI to make contact with financial institutions to access any financial information they have on file related to you.
They will use this to help determine your eligibility for SSI payments and how much you may be entitled to.
This process is done to verify that the information you have given is correct and that the bank balances that show are within the eligibility criteria. If you are found to be out of this then you will not be allowed to receive SSI payments.
The reason they do this is to figure out if you have any excess income and any accounts that you haven’t declared. This also helps to combat SSI fraud!
Social security fraud is a serious crime and is dealt with as both a felony and criminal offense.
You may well be wondering how much money you are allowed to have in your bank account in regards to receiving SSI. of course, SSI is in place to help out those people who receive very low to no income.
As such, it is assessed based on what money you have coming in or saved up. Currently, a person cannot have more than $2000 in assets.
These are countable assets and include all cash, money in bank accounts, additional vehicles, and additional real estate.
This means the boundaries are very strict and are in place to ensure that only those people who are most in need are able to receive SSI.
This also deters people from claiming when they don’t really need it, as, in theory, they could sell their extra automobiles or homes to help them financially.
Those at SSA (the people in charge of issuing SSI payments) will carefully assess your claim and investigate all sources of income to see that it is under $2000, thus making you eligible for SSI payments.
If you do not declare extra income or assets and they are later found, you may well be prosecuted as it is classed as fraud.
It is thought that those in charge of issuing and assessing SSI claims (the Social Security Administration) can check back around 3 years into your financial records to assess your income and assets.
This allows them to gain the best possible insight into how much money you have in your possession and what sort of income (if any) you may have coming in. in turn, they can make a fair decision on how much SSI you will be entitled to, or whether you will be entitled to any at all!
However, some people have stated that they may actually be able to check back further as they can access all of your financial accounts, meaning they can check any undisclosed accounts that may not have been touched in a number of years.
This is why it is always best to be upfront about everything in terms of your financial situation.
SSI will check your bank statements whenever you update them on any changes within your claim. They may also check it periodically for the length of your claim.
This may vary between each person and can happen between once every year and once every 6 years! You will always be made aware of this.
