🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <comp-privacy2.5.2@pica.army.mil> Hans Lachman <lachman@netcom.com> writes:
>In article <comp-privacy2.1.10@pica.army.mil> johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes:
>>>What experience have people in this group had in keeping the SSN of a newborn
>>>private?  I have heard that some hospitals insist on submitting the paperwork
>>>to the Social Security Administration to obtain the number.
>
>It would seem reasonable to decline their offer to set your kid up with an
>SSN since he won't need one until he starts working.

Well, things have changed since Hans was born.  Now, in order to get an
income tax exemption for the new baby, you have to get a SSN for him, and
supply it on your tax return.  There is some sort of an exemption for newborns,
but I think you now have to say that the SSN has been "applied for", and it's
only good for the first year or less.

Even before that, if you wanted to establish any kind of a savings account in
the baby's name (to avoid taxes), you had to supply the baby's SSN to the
institution holding the account.  Again, the rules on this have been getting
stricter and stricter, and I don't think you can get away with not suppling
a number for very long.

Now, I don't think there's a privacy issue in the hospital submitting the
paperwork to the SSA on your behalf - just make sure that the address for
returning the Social Security Card is yours, not the hospital's.  The SSN
doesn't appear on the application form - it's assigned by the SSA after they
get the paperwork, so there's no way the hospital can find out the SSN
assigned.  All the hospital can know is that you have applied for a number.
By insisting on filling out the paperwork, the hospital is mostly doing you a
favor.

					-- Fred