TDUI and substantial gainful employment

Question:

Hi , Jim , and thanks for doing what you do. Do you think the VA’s new policy of following social security ‘s definition of substantially gainful employment will help those veterans who have filed for TDIU benefits and are being bounced around in the claims process because of VA’sprevious inability too put a consistant definition on SGE?

Jim's Reply:

VA isn't necessarily changing the definition of gainful employment to a degree that will affect us. The SSA model isn't as liberal as the VA.  What they are doing is cross matching income with SA and IRS to verify that we aren't working. I believe that the idea of matching income is the right way to go to confirm that TDIU veterans haven't worked at gainful employment. Properly utilized this could be a good tool to help prevent fraud. Unfortunately the same people who were supposed to timely deliver the VA Form 21-4140 to every TDIU veteran on or about the yearly anniversary of their award will be in charge of administering this new way of doing things. I've been TDIU for many many years and I received two of the 4140 forms that entire time. VA managed to penalize many for not returning forms they never received and I expect similar SNAFUs with this initiative.