WEP document submission question

[HankNeva]

Greetings! I just got a letter from the Social Security office asking me to submit forms about my Japanese pension. I was happy to learn that the WEP Windfall Elimination Provision will no longer apply. I'm an American with 40 quarters of US work at quite low wages. The US SS office had sent me my estimated pension amount for many years, but when I went to start receiving it they applied the WEP and cut this small pension by half.

I checked my US bank account where i receive the SS payments and there was a lump sum there of close to 1.5 years of payments. That seems to be a retroactive payment.

The letter asks me to send the address and name of the agency from which I receive my pension. If I receive more than one pension I need to submit two forms along with the original award letter.

The letter says they will no longer apply the WEP to payments received under Japan's National Pension (JNP). But they will continue to apply it to payments received under the Employee Pension Insurance (EPI).

I wonder if I am receiving a pension under the EPI?

I worked for a Japanese university for 25 years, so I get a Pension from Shigau Kyosai Kumia and the National Pension scheme. I was under the impression these had been unified. But would the University Pension be considered EPI?

I'm not clear on what forms to send Social Security. Has anyone gotten any clarity on this situation?

[captainspoke]

Not sure about your questions on the pensions here, but I hope that some of the other things you mention are somehow applied to me! A retroactive bonus would be nice, especially when I've had my spidey senses on alert for something where I would need to confirm that I'm a valid SS recipient (that I'm alive, and a real person, and so on). I was expecting that in June, given some other posts here.

[TokyoWart]

My understanding is that WEP already did not apply to the Japan National Pension (基礎年金) which is the smaller amount we receive but did still apply to the larger Employee Pension Insurance (厚生年金) until Biden signed a law that eliminated WEP for everything in late December so I am surprized that the letter you received mentioned that WEP still applies to EPI.

[OSS542]

I just today got a similar note. The enclosed "form" to be filled out was of appalling quality, as though an original form had been carelessly placed at a slant on a out-of-focus copier. There was also a letter enclosed which had a date from a year and a half ago. There was another enclosed letter dated on March 6 of this year explaining that the first one had been produced due to some sort of a "processing error". All this leaves me wondering as to whether or not the message is legitimate. The "older" letter stated that WEP was still being applied to pension received from what they referred to as "EPI" (厚生年金 ?), but not JPN (国民年金 ?). I've seen conflicting information as to whether or not this is correct. I'm not sure what to do with this yet.

[captainspoke]

No letter or any other form of contact from SS about this. I get both the national pension (not counted, as mentioned above) and kousei (shigakukyosai), which I think was. But I don't know about the original calculations, so there's not much to do but wait and wonder.

At least my monthly payment arrived the other day as usual. It's deposited here in yen, and the conversion (works out as 149.57584) was done just before the uptick in the yen.

[HankNeva]

Continuing on from my original post above on March 14 - I recently got another letter from SS and in this one, it is mentioned that my monthly payment has been adjusted and is now about double of what it was starting April 3. It is sitting there in my US bank account. It seems they have done the adjustment based on evidence I provided when I signed up, so I'm wondering if it is best to ignore the form they sent earlier asking me to provide evidence of my pension. That is probably the approach I will take, as this new amount is the original amount they were telling me I would get for years. I will leave well enough alone for now.

[OSS542]

I haven't sent the filled out the pension evidence form yet, as it seems unclear whether or not it is still needed given all the confusion. I haven't yet received a second letter about any payment increase adjustment, so I think I will ignore the "form" letter until the situation is clear.

Regarding the possibility that your adjustment is based on information provided when you signed up: I'd be concerned whether or not the US government would eventually consider that adjustment to be improper and require repayment of it, particularly if WEP deductions are still in effect for EIP pension payments.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have seen and received notices that said WEP was revoked entirely, and others saying that WEP deductions were still conditionally applied to EIP (厚生年金) payments. I don't know which is actually correct, and given recent developments, responding to the form might add to the confusion.