Needless Forms

I had another self employed claimant's SSD application approved today at the initial level. I was surprised because I had been told that the claim would be denied for two reasons.

First, I was told that the claim would be denied if I failed to submit a work activity report, which details any work after the alleged disability onset date. I refused to submit the work activity form because I contended that all the information had already been supplied with the application. Second, I was told that the claimant's application would be denied unless I submitted his complete tax records for the past year, but I refused to provide anything other than the first page of the federal tax return on grounds of relevancy.

Because the application was approved at the initial level without explanation, I cannot know the reason why the "required" information did not prevent approval of the application. However, the experience does indicate that demands for superfluous information cannot justify rejecting a valid claim.