cmarshall

That cop is going to fired, if he hasn't been already, and prosecuted. He won't enjoy prison.

Well, I wouldn't do it. The SSA has a large role in my life these days which I would not want to jeopardize, even temporarily. And then does the advantage of not reporting your physical address amount to? So you don't get the annual are-you-alive letter. That's a pretty small benefit that is not worth any risk in my mind. The fact that the SSA has my correct information doesn't inconvenience me in the least. Someday they could notice and give you a headache.

Please note that I am neither alleging that you have an intention to defraud the SSA nor that you are at any particular risk of repercussions, which is probably small. However, SSA participants do have a specific obligation to notify the SSA when we move. The SSA always wants to know our physical address, even if they sometimes allow us also to indicate a mailing address, which they then ignore as far as I can see. Since as I gather, you live in Thailand and the physical address that the SSA has in your profile on ssa.gov is not your Thai address then you are possibly committing fraud. Whatever information other parts of the US govt may have as to your whereabouts does not relieve you of the obligation to inform the SSA specifically. I don't care what you do or don't do about it, but it would be foolish to persuade yourself that you are in compliance when you are not.

You have to have insurance coverage, because you are on an O-A visa? Or for some other reason? Those of us on Non-Imm O for retirement don't have to have insurance. I think you made a smart move by enrolling even late to Part B, however painful. Things change, especially for us expats who have chosen to fall between most of the cracks.

You might be committing fraud. The SSA will accept both a physical address for you and a mailing address. If you provide only one address and that's within the US, then they will take that as your physical address. I provided the SSA with my BKK address as my physical address and my CMRA as my mailing address at the time that I claimed benefits. The BKK address is the one that shows up in my profile on ssa.gov. If the the address that shows in your profile on ssa.gov is your son's US address then you may be defrauding the SSA. If you had not been receiving the annual Form 7162 prior to 2020 then that would be consistent with the SSA's believing that you claim to live in the US.

Ouch. Was the non-enrollment inadvertant or a strategy?

You could be right, but I am unable to find the details of the penalty calculation online. Do you have a link?

DHL used to ship phones. Don't know their current policy. Thai Post won't. They blow up.

I didn't know that. So, it compounds. You pay penalties on the penalties. Nasty.

How do you figure that? You pay the 10% premium for each year after 65 that you did not enroll in Part B. But you pay the 10% penalty not once, but forever.

I enrolled in Parts A and B at age 65, even though I don't plan on returning to live in the US. Nevertheless, I pay for Part B against the possibility that there might be a reason to repatriate at some point in the future.

Foreign assets are not going to be conveyed by a Thai will. Also, the OP can just register his marriage at the local amphur which is relatively painless. Then, in the absence of a will his wife will inherit his bank account.

Hours of operation of ssa.gov:

When you logged in the first time you should have received a recovery code. Very important to save that in a handy place, because you will never see it again. My wife has had to use the recovery code to login several times. When that happens they immediately give you a new recovery code for the next time.

A few months ago. We gave them our US mailing address a the CMRA, not our physical address in BKK. They accepted it.

20k was only for the pre-op checkup. The total cost at St. Louis is about 200,000 + the cost of the room, which I didn't get. I had a consultation with Dr. Narongsak. He was thorough. I had consultations at both St. Louis and Chula. Even so, I never could get the cost of the pre-op exam from them, other than what one nurse said casually to my wife. I plan to have the surgery at Chula. Their cost for the pre-op exam is very reasonable. Thanks for your advice.

So, I have been shopping for laparoscopic surgery to repair an inguinal hernia, one side. What I have found is that hospitals here are generally not set up to give complete estimates of the cost of surgery beyond back-of-the-envelope figures. The exception was Bamrungrad which offers packages with pricing on their website. I never could get a clear answer from St. Louis as to the cost of the pre-op checkup, although one nurse thought it was probably around THB 20,000, but that sounds high to me. https://www.bumrungrad.com/en/packages/laparoscopic-inguinal-hernia-repair-1-side At Chulalongkorn I went to the "after hours" private clinic, not the regular hours hospital service. I was surprised that Chula was not much cheaper than St. Louis, although the St. Louis cost did not include the cost of staying overnight. The US average cost is one figure I found among many on the internet. Don't know how accurate it is.

If you are satisfied with a life of poverty in the boonies.

The blind offering to lead the blind.

You English is fine, but THB 20 million is not enough to retire at age 45. Are you planning on finding a job in Thailand? Will you be permitted to work here?

Not that the US has a democracy to brag about according to a report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance of Sweden: A present wave of democratic erosion around the globe is part of a larger historic cycle of progress and regression, according to the author of a report released this week designating U.S. democracy as “backsliding” for the first time. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-11-24/study-classifies-u-s-democracy-as-backsliding-for-the-first-time

I can't remember now whether my wife used her Thai phone number or her Google Voice number. One of them worked. The security of id.me is better than the old login method. You have an online video session. You have to send a copy of your passport and also have your picture taken with the passport in your hand.

A US address is not required to open an account at ssa.gov. My wife opened hers from Thailand. But she had to use the id.me option which required an online authentication. Continues to work fine.

That emotion is called "fear."

I would have said twenty years, because of the depraved indifference to life he exhibited. However, I notice that criminal sentences in the US tend to be longer than those in Europe, which I take to be a symptom of the peculiarly American love of punishment. Breivik, who shot seventy-seven people in Norway, was sentenced to only twenty-one years and is soon coming up for parole after only ten. In light of the superior Norwegian penal system, I would adjust my recommendation to ten years. Either way his name will be forgotten long before he gets out.