Let`s look at how the agreement may impact in a slightly different scenario. In this scenario, the circumstances are as follows: Ms. Jones is a U.S. citizen and a permanent resident of Canada. She has lived and worked in the United States for all but five years, intending to continue her Canadian residency in the future. With only 5 years as a Canadian resident, Ms. Jones did not meet the ten-year minimum residency requirement to receive a partial OAS benefit. However, the agreement triggers the possibility of drawing a history of residency in the United States to bring the total length of residence back to the OAS minimum requirement for partial OAS benefits. However, it does not increase the OAS benefit to a higher amount, but simply allows Ms.
Jones to qualify for an OAS benefit based on the five years she has spent in Canada since the age of 18. As in the previous example, if the agreement had not been reached, Ms. Jones would not have been able to meet the OAS eligibility requirements. I am 68 and my wife is 67 and we both started receiving SS benefits exactly one year ago. However, she receives spousal benefits in my file. Although we both worked in Canada for a few years (she worked a little more than me), as I only have 28 years of “substantial” SS income (24 if they were to be before I was 62), I would be hit with a WEP penalty. Am I correct in assuming that if my wife applies for an QPP (but I do not), her IG benefits will not decrease after receiving the QPP? If that is the case, then we should know, when she turns 70, what kind of blows her SS benefits would suffer because of the QPP, since she has only 11 or 12 years of SS income. I am concerned that if I also apply for the QPP, my SS performance will decrease, as will her spousal benefits. Thank you When it became clear (late 2008 during the accident/collapse) that I had no choice but to return to Canada, I went through a very frustrating process of trying to get some level of reimbursement, compensation or credit through U.S.
Social Services. it was a brick wall all the way. Your position is, you must have 40 quarters of contributions recorded while you are employed in the United States, or you will receive zip, zero, zilch as a retirement benefit. What happens when you have, say, 30 years of work in the United States, so no reduction? + 3k per year from the CPP for working in Canada during college and high school and another 2K-3K gbp approximately from the UK for working there for 2 years with membership in their NI program. Yes, your wife`s social security should not be reduced by more than 1/2 of her QPP. You must apply separately for each country for all the benefits to which you may be entitled. In addition, your employer must indicate whether you remain a U.S. employee.
while working in Canada or when you become an employee of the U.S. company`s subsidiary in Canada. If you become an employee of an affiliate, your employer must indicate whether the U.S. company has entered into an agreement with the IRS pursuant to Section 3121(l) of the Internal Revenue Code to pay U.S. social security taxes to U.S. citizens and residents employed by the affiliate and, if so, the effective date of the agreement. Zoe, if the section is optional and you want to receive benefits in the foreseeable future, I suggest you DO NOT complete it. When I did that, they automatically considered my application as a “complex case” for which they scheduled 40 weeks for assessment before you could inquire about it. After 40 years, when I asked for them to be accelerated, it took me another month to get a benefit. Yes, they gave me the money retroactively, but the wait was long. By the way, if your mother worked in the UK from 1970 (when she was 18) until 1987 (when she moved here), she should be entitled to state pension benefits in the UK for that period. The UK uses the 30th in its denominator (i.e.
maybe 50%), although this depends in part on whether she would “come out of the `full stamp` as a married woman” (even then she would get something. The other good news is that she qualified at her age (just like my wife) at the age of 62, and the UK gives a very generous carry-over bonus of 10% per year. She should definitely contact the UK state pension authority (google for the address), it costs nothing to apply and she can be very pleasantly surprised even with the current state of the pound sterling (after Brexit) Thank you for clarifying the confusion about all this. I will certainly wait a few more years before applying for benefits from either program. In the meantime, I will rely on the return on my investments and U.S. Social Security to fund my partial retirement. Your wife should probably also be eligible for a CPP retirement pension, but receiving the CPP can affect the amount of her U.S. Social Security under the WEP.
Hi Srinivas, I agree with you. Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not. Do not shoot the messenger. Mr. Smith, a Canadian citizen and U.S. green card holder, decides to retire in 2019. His career culminated in thirty years of work in Ontario for GM Canada and six years of income earned under GM U.S. in Detroit. Mr.
Smith decided to return to his roots in Canada. For the sake of simplicity, let us say that he spent forty years in Canada from the age of 18 to the age of 65. In this case, he is eligible for a full OAS benefit and a CPP benefit based on his Canadian income records, but he does not reach the minimum years of service when he was employed in the United States to be eligible for U.S. Social Security. In stages, the application of the Canada-U.S. Tabulation Agreement that allows Mr. Smith to use his CPP loans to fill the 4-year gap to meet SS qualifications. Although Mr. Smith is now qualified, his SS performance will be based on his six-year earnings record against the minimum ten-year requirement. If the agreement had not existed, Mr. Smith would not have been able to receive SS benefits.
I am receiving a military pension from a country (India) that does not have social security agreements with Canada. Will this affect my eligibility for OAS and GIS, I will also withdraw an ACAN (similar to an RRSP in Canada, I believe) from my former employer in the U.S., as well as a private pension plan from that employer (I have the choice between a one-time principal payment or monthly retirement payments). It is generally not difficult to meet these minimum contribution requirements if you have spent your entire life in Canada. This is much more difficult if you have moved to another country or another country in your lifetime. In the absence of a social security agreement between these countries, persons may not be entitled to benefits from one or both of these countries. Doug, very nice article. I wonder if you can tell me how to proceed. I was Canadian and moved to the United States in 2009. I received an Ontario pension for policing and started receiving a Canada pension at age 60.
I have been working in the United States since 2011. I divorced and started applying for social security on my ex-spouses at the age of 62. .