Hi Larry. Good stuff on your site.

That said, the online question and answer re receiving both US and CH social security benefits resulting in a reduction on the US side via WEP may be misleading. Your online answer then refers to "pension" on the Swiss side when the question asks about US and CH "social security". A "pension", in my understanding, is not equivalent to "social security" (which is defined in CH (and under its totalization agreement with the US) as "Old-Age and Survivors Insurance", or, in expat terms as Tier 1)). (CH Tier 2, and certainly Tier 3 in CH, would likely be characterized as "pension.") It also is my understanding that given same, that is, where Tier 1 is concerned there is no WEP reduction as it is equivalent to social security (and not "pension")) Please provide feedback. Thanks, Annie

Hi Annie,

Foreign Social Security benefits are defined as pensions for purposes of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) provided that the foreign Social Security payments are based on the person's work and earnings. Some countries pay Social Security benefits, or a portion thereof, based solely on citizenship, residency or need, and those types of payments would not count for WEP purposes since they aren't based on the recipient's work and earnings.

I'm not familiar with Switzerland's Social Security program, so if their are different tiers involved I don't know which tiers would or would not trigger WEP. Social Security's operations manual (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200307290) says the following about Social Security benefits from Switzerland: 'Ordinary pension benefits are based on a worker's contributions, while Switzerland also pays an “extraordinary” benefit which is needs-related, not based on contributions, and payable only to residents of Switzerland.' Therefore, ordinary benefits from the Swiss program would count for WEP purposes, but extraordinary benefits would not.

Best, Jerry