Addendum - 0051

Addendum to the Supporting Statement for

Supplement to Claim of Person Outside the United States

20 CFR 422.505(b), 404.460, 404.463, and 42 CFR 407.27(c)

OMB No. 0960-0051

Revisions to the Collection Instrument

SSA is making the following revisions:

• Change #1: We are changing the language in the instructions for Item 3 to clarify who must complete this item. We changed “expects to be outside the U.S. in the next 3 months” to “expects to be outside the U.S. for 30 consecutive days or more.” We also changed “beneficiary” to “claimant or beneficiary.” We separated the explanation that beneficiaries and claimants in each household must complete a separate form into two separate sentences. We also changed the page number for the REMARKS section mentioned in these instructions.

Justification #1: We are making these changes to item 3 to clarify who needs to complete this form, and clarify that each household must complete a separate form. We changed “the next 3 months” to 30 consecutive days outside the U.S. because we want to capture when a beneficiary or claimant will be “outside the U.S.” (30 consecutive days) without capturing excess information from beneficiaries not subject to the alien nonpayment provision. The majority of beneficiaries who must complete the Form SSA‑21 in post-entitlement situations would be doing so because of a domestic to foreign change of address. Our policy requires beneficiaries to report a domestic to foreign change of address if they expect to be outside the United States for at least 3 months. We decided that changing the language to “outside the U.S. for 30 consecutive days or more” would capture the claimants and beneficiaries subject to alien nonpayment quicker without collecting unnecessary information. We corrected the page number for the REMARKS section from page 3 to page 4.

• Change #2: We are changing “U.S. Passport No.” to “Passport No.” in the third column of Item 3.

Justification #2: We are making this language change because we can no longer verify validity and get additional information using the U.S. passport number. Asking for any passport number, however, will be helpful in the development process to obtain evidence of citizenship.

• Change #3: We are changing “Cerification” to “Certification” in the NOTE between item 3 and 4.

Justification #3: We are making this change to correct the spelling.

• Change #4: We are changing the language in the instructions for Item 4 to request respondents to Item 3 to answer this item if applicable. We changed the language about counting the days of U.S. presence by residents of Canada or Mexico coming to and from the United States for work on a daily basis.

Justification #4: We are making these changes to be clearer in our explanation about who should provide information about U.S. presence and which days to include.

• Change #5: We are removing the sentence “(If everyone listed in item 3 is a U.S. citizen, skip item 9 through 14 and go to item 15.)” sectioned off by lines between item 8 and the explanation for items 9 through 14.

Justification #5: We are making this change because we are no longer requiring U.S. citizens to complete this form.

• Change #6: We are requesting changes to the explanation before items 9 through 14. We are requesting to change the text in bold capital letters between lines within this explanation to the same font as the rest of the explanation, and we are requesting to remove the lines.

Justification #6: We are requesting these changes for plain language and better readability. We are removing the lines and changing the bold capital letters to the same font and the remaining text because this sentence does not need to stand out.

• Change #7: We are making minor changes to the language in the Form SSA-21 macros. We decreased the number of questions, made the language clearer, and grouped the questions related to one another together for better understanding. We eliminated characters that the new program (in the POMS Remarks portion of the OQA Toolbar) does not allow.

Justification #7: We made these changes to accommodate the character restrictions in the new program that will contain the macros, and made them easier to understand by simplifying the language and arranging them in groups.

• Change #8: We are changing the Script for the Macros to reflect the same language changes on Form SSA-21 in the explanation preceding item 9 (change #6 above on this Addendum).

Justification #8: We are making this change to be consistent with the information we are providing to the respondent using either modality before completing Items 9 through 14.

• Change #9: We are revising the Privacy Act Statement on the form.
  
  Justification #9: SSA’s Office of the General Counsel is conducting a systematic review of SSA’s Privacy Act Statements on agency forms. As a result, SSA is updating the Privacy Act Statement on the form.
  
  
  
  

SSA will implement the changes above upon OMB approval.

These actions do not affect the public reporting burden.