(REMASTERED) 10.9.2011 (Self Employment and Depressive Disorder)

All right, everyone, welcome to another edition of Q and A Social Security Disability Today. I am your host, Attorney Anthony Reeves, and this show is proudly presented to you by the Reeves Law Firm, dedicated to representing the disabled and discriminated, the Reeves Law Firm www. Dot Reevesfirm dot com.

I welcome your questions as always, so let's get started, okay. Our first question for today is what is a depressive disorder? A depressive disorder, of course, in accordance with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth Edition by the American Psychiatric Association, really deals with symptoms as presenting as a result of being having a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure.

Here's one of the things that I tell people all the time when it comes to any type of physical or mental health condition, especially mental health conditions. First and foremost, you want to rely on the diagnosis of your physician with regards to that condition. Secondly, I always stress to people that there are varying degrees of severity. A lot of times we find ourselves in situations where we focus solely on the diagnosis but not so much on the severity, meaning You've been diagnosed with a depressive disorder, and all of a sudden, it's easy to stop and say, oh my gosh, slam dunk, I didn't know I had that. Well, that may be the first part of the problem. The question is we now know what your disorder is. Your

next question really needs to be what are the symptoms of that disorder and how severe are those symptoms in terms of its ability to affect your ability to work or do other things. Think about it. Depressive disorder can be demonstrated by a variety of things that could be you know, as a result of insomnia. You could have insomnia.

You could be experiencing fatigue, feelings of worthless, diminished ability to think or concentrate. All of these things are different symptoms that may be associated with a depressive disorder. So before you start running and saying, okay, I've got this condition, what does that mean to me? Ask your doctor what symptoms you display that indicates to the doctor that you may have a dispressive disorder, And more importantly, how is that condition affecting your ability to do your daily activities or any other activities which includes work. All right, our second question has to deal with self employment. The question that was posed to me was will I lose my SSDI due to self employment? Okay, I got to take

a moment to really explain this, so please be patient because it can get kind of weird. The very first step of the five step process that Social Security looks at is are you working? And the phrase that's used commonly within the industry is substantial gainful activity. This usually falls into two categories. You're either working for someone or you're working for yourself. It's a little easier when you're working for someone because they typically look at it from the standpoint of how much you're earning, and then if the money gets over a certain threshold, then you can kind of argue why that money should not be considered substantial gainful because it's sheltered work, or maybe you have a job coach and things like that. Self employment is

a lot different. Let me tell you why self employment is different because, unlike when you're working for someone and you're just going in and you're just doing your job and that's it, as a self employed employee, you're basically an employer for yourself. So not only are you doing the things that an employee would do, you also are doing the things that an employer would do. And sometimes people who do things with themselves, they don't think of it like that. For instance, if they're sitting here and maybe they're making necklaces and they sell those necklaces, well, the first thought is, well, all I'm doing is selling necklaces, and I only do it, you know, an hour or two every now and then, and you'll only make a

couple of dollars and it's enough. But think about it from the standpoint of this, somebody has to want those necklaces. Guess what. You've got to promote that. That means you are marketing it. You've got to pay for the pieces to put it together. That means you have to calculate how much it costs to get those pieces. You've got to figure out how much it is going to cost for you to get a profit in light of what you pay for. You've got to market it, you've got to produce it, you've got to deliver it. You've got to keep inventory, you've got to keep your books in terms of how you're making, how much money you're bringing in.

You're reporting these things, all of these things the things that employer would do. So When people find themselves in the situation of self employment, they tend to freak out when Social Security contacts them and says, you know, we have reason to belie leave that you may constitute or constan do what we call a self employed individual. So then if you're in one of those situations where and people I've seen this happen a million times, you know you're not working anymore. You're trying to divide. Either you're on disability and you're just trying to get a couple more extra dollars because disability is not paying you enough, or you're waiting for disability and you're just trying to get a couple of dollars come in so you can

at least pay for things like food or the light bills. And then all of a sudden, because of course you're doing the right thing, you're reporting those earnings. Those earnings are flagged in your taxes. And what happens is that when you're going through the process, social Security gets your earnings report, likes them. They see these earnings and they want to know what the deal is. So unlike when you're working for someone where it's just a matter of it's reported as earnings from that employer. Now you have to explain your self employment status. Here's where a couple of things that you need to be aware of, and please be patient as I go over. There are three tests.

Three of them the Social Security relies on. The First test is the one is whether or not you provide a significant services and substantial income. Now there's income that they rely on. That's the easy dollar amount, but you can actually reduce that depending on whether you've got help. For instance, let's say you're doing what we just decide described like, you're making necklaces, but you're not promoting the making of necklaces. Your cousin actually knows that you do that as a hobby. And so she goes and she tells everybody at your church, everybody at her job. And so she comes back and says, hey, we need a couple of necklaces. Can you make them? Well, you already have the parts, so you make them anyway, you give

them to her. She goes, she markets them, she sells them, she gets the money, and she just gives it to you so you can have it. So all at work, meaning she comes as she picks it up, she actually promotes it. She actually disseminates it to different individuals. That's all unpaid wages that could be reduced from the income that Social Security with calculate. So you want to make sure you're detail about how you do your self employment, meaning do you have somebody working for you, If it's just you by yourself, what are you doing Like for instance, I'm an attorney, So it's a little bit different for me as a self employee because I can do work by myself that is going to be substantial because of how much I charge per hour for what I do.

But for what you may do, whereas some hands and crap like I just described, you want to make sure you explain to them with regard to the income, then with regards to significant services. This is where we were talking about how you're running the business of being self employed, meaning and the one example that I gave you with regards to the necklaces, there were two different examples I provide you. On the one example, you're promoting you created a nice website. You promoted that you make necklaces. People have to pay you a deposit. You keep track of the deposit. You go out and you physically get in your card, you drive, you pick up the materials from Michael's.

You bring the materials in, you put the necklaces together, You notify the persons when they're ready, you go and you deliver them to you, and you get the money. You keep track of that. See all those different tasks. But on the flip side, on the flip side, you have the other one, which is where you've got your cousin.

Maybe your cousin has If your cousin and your cousin's best friend are doing everything except for the putting it together, and you're just putting the necklaces together on your own every blue moon, no big deal. You maybe do it thirty minutes today, thirty minutes tomorrow. Because you can't really sit up for a long length of time. You have to describe in detail how you do what you do so the Social Security can get a good indication of whether or not what you're doing is considered significant service and substantial income. All right, that's the first test. Well, if you don't qualify under the first test for stuff employee, then it goes on to the second two tests. Let me make sure I get this right. Please forgive me.

I'm going through paperwork and sometimes it gets lostive. Then the question is that then they want to take the individual's work activity. Second test is whether it's comparability of work and then worth of work. Worth of work where one, you're looking at the individual's work activity in terms of relevant factors such as our skills and energy, is comparable to that of unimpaired individuals in the same community engaged in the same or similar business. That's a nice way of saying, if you're disabled and you're doing this work, we're going to compare it to somebody who's not disabled doing the same work, and are the two comparable. If in the example that I just provided to you, you know, the person who normally makes necklaces, they do it and

it takes them, I don't know, you know, two or three hours to do it, and they can do one necklace. And let's say they can do one necklace in thirty minutes, Well, it takes you three hours to do that same necklace because you have to take a lot of breaks because of all the pain that you're in. You might be able to make the argument that that's not comparable. So now, if you've gotten past comparability, then you go to the worth of the work. So even after all that the person's worth is the work is worth more than the amount shown for the particular calendar year. Here's where somebody like me comes into play. Where I may make an argument that somebody comes to me and asks me a question about social superior disability, if another attorney who was

unimpaired can give the same answer in ten minutes, but it takes me an hour because I'm in so much pain, I have to concentrate, up the focus and everything like that, I may make the argument that under the first two prongs I don't satisfy. However, However, if if it doesn't matter, if you stop and you think about it, the worth of my advice is the same as the worth of advice and an unimpaired attorney, then you basically say, well, whether it's thirty minutes two minutes for him to give his answer or an hour for me, we both gave the same answer and it's both worth the same dollar amount.

Guess what. Then I may be considered self employed underneath the regulations. Both employees are really really tricky. You need to pay very close attention to all the details of what goes on in yourself inmployment out situation. That means cradle to grade. That means you need to pay attention to from how the person finds out about you. Do you do anything for them to find out about what you're doing? Do you do anything in terms of getting the products, the providing the services? How much time does it take? Do you have to take a lot of breaks?

Do you have any problems? Are there any confusion? Do you do the books? I know this sounds crazy, but remember, as a self emed self employee, you might as well say it's an employer because you're basically working for yourself. Social Security doesn't have the luxury of being able to contact your employer to find out exactly what you're doing.

You are the employer, so you need to be prepared to describe in detail how you do what you do when you do it for yourself, and enough detail so that they can make a determination of whether or not it should be something that should be counted against you negatively. All right, I know that was a mouthful. Let us always keep those questions coming. I appreciate them, and if you have any questions, you always know you can put them right here. Again. My name is Hernie Anthony Reeves, and welcome and thank you for another edition of Q and a for procurity the Filly Today

(REMASTERED) 10.9.2011 (Self Employment and Depressive Disorder)

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