Your filing cabinet?

[Neto]

What Neto is getting that is that you don't get credit for years you are a permanent resident of another country. On the flip side, you aren't obligated to pay OASDI or self employment tax either.

Only for some reason we WERE obligated to pay SS tax. Or maybe the mission just thought we were, but WBT is/was a large organization, and I think they looked into it. As 'religious workers' (according to the US government) we had the option of being excluded, but I don't think anyone did, and the mission strongly discouraged it. Now federal tax was different. We weren't exempt, but the Foreign Earned Exclusion went up to $75,000.00, which of course we never got anywhere close to. (There were some years that we were required to pay Brazilian income tax, but most years we didn't qualify.)

So we SHOULD be getting credit for the (paltry) amount we paid into SS while in Brazil. Whether the IRS will see it that way is the question.

[Ken]

What Neto is getting that is that you don't get credit for years you are a permanent resident of another country. On the flip side, you aren't obligated to pay OASDI or self employment tax either.

Only for some reason we WERE obligated to pay SS tax. Or maybe the mission just thought we were, but WBT is/was a large organization, and I think they looked into it. As 'religious workers' (according to the US government) we had the option of being excluded, but I don't think anyone did, and the mission strongly discouraged it. Now federal tax was different. We weren't exempt, but the Foreign Earned Exclusion went up to $75,000.00, which of course we never got anywhere close to. (There were some years that we were required to pay Brazilian income tax, but most years we didn't qualify.)

So we SHOULD be getting credit for the (paltry) amount we paid into SS while in Brazil. Whether the IRS will see it that way is the question.

Yes, if you are a US citizen working overseas you still owe income tax and social security tax depending on the type and form of the income.

If the organization you worked for paid social security taxes then you should get credit for those wages. Hopefully they actually PAID those taxes and didn't just deduct the money from your paycheck and pocket it which some shady employers sometimes do. In which case your pay stubs might show the tax being withheld by the employer but Social Security will have no record of the payment because it wasn't made.

[Neto]

What Neto is getting that is that you don't get credit for years you are a permanent resident of another country. On the flip side, you aren't obligated to pay OASDI or self employment tax either.

Only for some reason we WERE obligated to pay SS tax. Or maybe the mission just thought we were, but WBT is/was a large organization, and I think they looked into it. As 'religious workers' (according to the US government) we had the option of being excluded, but I don't think anyone did, and the mission strongly discouraged it. Now federal tax was different. We weren't exempt, but the Foreign Earned Exclusion went up to $75,000.00, which of course we never got anywhere close to. (There were some years that we were required to pay Brazilian income tax, but most years we didn't qualify.)

So we SHOULD be getting credit for the (paltry) amount we paid into SS while in Brazil. Whether the IRS will see it that way is the question.

Yes, if you are a US citizen working overseas you still owe income tax and social security tax depending on the type and form of the income.

If the organization you worked for paid social security taxes then you should get credit for those wages. Hopefully they actually PAID those taxes and didn't just deduct the money from your paycheck and pocket it which some shady employers sometimes do. In which case your pay stubs might show the tax being withheld by the employer but Social Security will have no record of the payment because it wasn't made.

The mission didn't pay any of the SS taxes. We were employees for purposes of federal tax, but self-employed for purposes of SS tax. So we paid all 15% of our income. But I don't have quite all of those 1040 copies, because lots of papers were left in Brazil. They are supposed to still be there someplace, but I don't know if someone threw it all out. Anyway, I only had the pencil copies, nothing from the IRS to acknowledge that those payments were made. (Might have bank statements, but that would be all. That isn't really the issue, however, because they DID acknowledge those payments until 2022, when suddenly some office worker thought that those payment records were either wrong, or didn't count for some odd reason. It would have been better all around if the mission had taken it out of our pay, even all 15%, then submit it in the way that the government would have expected. But I suppose that would not have been legal - to take out all 15%.)

[Ken]

Only for some reason we WERE obligated to pay SS tax. Or maybe the mission just thought we were, but WBT is/was a large organization, and I think they looked into it. As 'religious workers' (according to the US government) we had the option of being excluded, but I don't think anyone did, and the mission strongly discouraged it. Now federal tax was different. We weren't exempt, but the Foreign Earned Exclusion went up to $75,000.00, which of course we never got anywhere close to. (There were some years that we were required to pay Brazilian income tax, but most years we didn't qualify.)

So we SHOULD be getting credit for the (paltry) amount we paid into SS while in Brazil. Whether the IRS will see it that way is the question.

Yes, if you are a US citizen working overseas you still owe income tax and social security tax depending on the type and form of the income.

If the organization you worked for paid social security taxes then you should get credit for those wages. Hopefully they actually PAID those taxes and didn't just deduct the money from your paycheck and pocket it which some shady employers sometimes do. In which case your pay stubs might show the tax being withheld by the employer but Social Security will have no record of the payment because it wasn't made.

The mission didn't pay any of the SS taxes. We were employees for purposes of federal tax, but self-employed for purposes of SS tax. So we paid all 15% of our income. But I don't have quite all of those 1040 copies, because lots of papers were left in Brazil. They are supposed to still be there someplace, but I don't know if someone threw it all out. Anyway, I only had the pencil copies, nothing from the IRS to acknowledge that those payments were made. (Might have bank statements, but that would be all. That isn't really the issue, however, because they DID acknowledge those payments until 2022, when suddenly some office worker thought that those payment records were either wrong, or didn't count for some odd reason. It would have been better all around if the mission had taken it out of our pay, even all 15%, then submit it in the way that the government would have expected. But I suppose that would not have been legal - to take out all 15%.)

I expect your best bet is to make an appointment at your local SS office and find someone there who you can enlist as an ally to get all this sorted out. It is harder to blow someone off when they are sitting there in front of you. And I expect most people in your local office will actually want to help. They are your neighbors.