SOCIAL SECURITY MISMATCH LETTERS TO RETURN

In July of 2018, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that it will be resuming the practice of sending "no-match" letters to employers when the information on tax forms is not consistent with SSA records.  The letters are expected to resume in 2019, and as before, will request that the businesses and employers take steps to correct the information within sixty (60) days.  The practice of issuing such letters actually begin prior to the enactment of the immigration laws, due to a desire to apply Social Security funds to the proper account.  Today there is more than $1.5 trillion kept in SSA's earnings suspense file where funds are kept that are contributed but cannot be matched with SSA records.  The practice of sending out such no-match letters has been started and stopped on many occasions over the years, and was most recently discontinued in 2012. 

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not commented on whether the letters will be used for immigration enforcement purposes.  In the past, the letters were sometimes used as evidence that a particular worker could be an undocumented immigrant who is using someone else's Social Security number.  Of course, there could be many reasons for the mismatch, including clerical errors, name changes, and criminals who steal identities for other purposes.