If you have had the same rating for five or more years, the VA cannot reduce your rating unless your condition has improved on a sustained basis. All the medical evidence, not just the reexamination report, must support the conclusion that your improvement is more than temporary.
If your disability has been continuously rated at or above a certain rating level for 20 or more years, the VA cannot reduce your rating unless it finds the rating was based on fraud.
This is a very high standard and it's unlikely the rating would get reduced. That is not the issue the VA looks at, however. The fact that you have had a little improvement is not enough. Unless the reexamination report shows material improvement, the VA cannot reduce your rating. Even in cases where your disability has materially improved, your rating can still be protected from reduction if you are unable to work due to your service-connected disability.
If you do not have one of the protected rates, the VA still cannot reduce your rating after a reexamination unless:.
If you go to jail, the VA can temporarily reduce your benefits. See Nolo's article on VA benefit reductions if you go to jail. Benefits for disabilities with a service connection can be reduced as described above , but rarely stopped altogether.
If you have been receiving service-connected benefits for ten years or longer, your benefits receive special protection from termination. The VA cannot terminate these benefits unless you committed fraud or unless the VA made a "clear and unmistakable error" in granting you benefits CUE.
In such cases, a rating of "total disability" may be reduced. However, if the veteran's work is for vocational rehabilitation, education or training, or if the job uses mental demands rather than physical, when the disability is physical, than a reduced rating may not occur.
If a veteran has been deemed to have permanent and total disability and has been receiving disability benefits for twenty years or more, his or her benefits cannot be reduced. If the veteran's disability is less than permanent and total, and the veteran has been receiving disability benefits for twenty years or more, and upon re-examination by the VA the veteran's disability rating is lowered, the amount of compensation will not drop below the original level.
In certain circumstances in addition to no longer being disabled , a veteran can lose his or her disability benefits. First, if a veteran makes a fraudulent statement, affidavit, or claim in order to obtain disability benefits, he forfeits all rights to receive such benefits.
Benefits may still be paid to the veteran's spouse, children, and parents, however. If a veteran receives or accepts disability payments that he is not entitled to, with the intent to defraud the government, he will likely lose his disability benefits, and may also be subject to imprisonment or fine. If a veteran commits treason, mutiny, or sabotage, or assists an enemy of the United States, he forfeits his right to veterans benefits, including disability benefits.
Any veteran who is incarcerated for more than sixty days in a federal or state prison or other correctional facility due to a felony or conviction will not receive disability benefits after the sixtieth day of incarceration until release from incarceration, or will receive a lower amount of compensation. If the veteran is a fugitive felon meaning that he is fleeing to avoid prosecution or incarceration , he will not receive disability benefits for the period during which he is a fugitive felon.
A veteran entitled to disability benefits may voluntarily renounce his or her right to benefits by doing so in a written, signed application. The information provided on this site is not legal advice, does not constitute a lawyer referral service, and no attorney-client or confidential relationship is or will be formed by use of the site. The attorney listings on this site are paid attorney advertising. The amount of base compensation veterans receive depends on the severity of their disabilities which are rated between zero and percent in increments of Additional compensation may be awarded to veterans based on the number of their dependents and other factors.
By law, VA's disability payments are intended to offset the average earnings that veterans would be expected to lose given the severity of their service-connected medical conditions or injuries, whether or not a particular veteran's condition actually reduced his or her earnings.
Disability compensation is not means-tested: Veterans who work are eligible for benefits, and, in fact, most working-age veterans who receive such compensation are employed.
Those Social Security disability benefits are based on previous earnings and usually replace wages and salaries on less than a one-to-one basis. Even after veterans reach full retirement age, VA's disability payments continue at the same level.
By contrast, the income that people receive after they retire from Social Security or private pensions usually is less than their earnings from wages and salary before retirement. For instance, the ratio of benefits from Social Security to average lifetime earnings is usually much less than 1 to 1. For workers who have earned relatively low wages over their career, the ratio is around one-half; for higher-income workers, it is around one-quarter or less.
As a consequence, once veterans reach retirement age, the combination of their VA disability payments and Social Security benefits may be more than the income of comparable veterans without a service-connected disability. In , about 87 percent of veterans who received VA's disability compensation and who were age 67 or older were out of the labor market. Under this option, VA would reduce disability compensation payments to veterans by 30 percent at age 67 for all veterans who begin receiving those benefits after January Social Security's full retirement age varies depending on beneficiaries' birth year; this option uses age 67, which is the full retirement age for people born after Social Security and pension benefits would be unaffected by this option.
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