Reply #30: Question on the details [View All]

[dmallind]

Obviously shrubco are keeping the details pretty quiet on this one but there's one thing I've never heard the talking heads discuss and can't find a definitive answer to. It's a rather vital question too for the future stability of SS funds.

Given that the privatized accounts will be separated from the general SS funds, what happens to them if the individual dies before exhausting these funds or even before receiving SS payouts at all? There is an enormous amount of actuarial work behind SS and much of it is to do with mortality rates and life expectancy. If I die at 52 I pay in a crapload of SS taxes and get back not a dime. No big deal to me - I'm dead for a start and I know this is a pay as you go setup. However it is very much a big deal if 1/6 of my SS taxes, and everyone else's who dies pre-retirement, get siphoned off of the SS accounts and just goes into my estate.

Given whose idea this is I suppose I could guess the money will go to the estate - Shrubco seems passionately devoted to making sure already comfortable inheritors get every possible penny whether they need it or not and at anyone else's expense. However I would like to know for sure. Anybody seen this answered definitively?

Thx!