When does someone's age legally go up by one year?
Stan K
Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
day before our birthday.
For example, when I started school and the intent was for all children
born in the calendar year 5 years before to be eligible for
kindergarten, the actual dates were January 2, 1947 thru January 1,
1948. We also see this with income tax, where a child born on January
1, 2010 can be claimed as a dependent on the parents 2009 return
(i.e., as though born in 2009). Finally, with Social Security,
eligibility starts with the first full month following the 62nd
birthday, but it's the month of the 62nd birthday if the birthday is
on the first or second (because somebody born on the 2nd is considered
born on the first, and thus will be 62 the entire month). In a
related case, my co-worker's wife was born on Nov 1 and was eligible
for Medicare on Oct 1 of the year she turned 65. I told him that it
has to do with some legal thingy that a person ages a day before the
birthday, so his wife legally turned 65 at some point on Oct 31, which
is why she was Medicare-eligible as of Oct 1. (For you children
reading this, we become Medicare-eligible on the 1st of the month of
our 65th birthday.)
I remember hearing about this years ago, when college students would
try to get a drink the night before their 21st birthday by showing
some copy of some law that said they were legally 21.
So when exactly, and is there a specific time-of-day, does our age
increment by a year?
Mike Jacobs
> When, legally, are we a year older?
I'll bite. After you have lived a full 365 days (366 in a leap year)
since the exact second of your birth? No, we're not doing astrology,
where minutes count, we're talking law. The law generally deals in
whole days only.
After the earth has returned to precisely the point in its orbit it
was at when you popped out of Mommy's womb? Approximately, but also
no cigar (the earth _never_ returns to _exactly_ the same spot, is
why)
Actually, the precise means of calculating the one-year-older date
vary by state law, so YMMV. But typically, one is considered to be "a
year older" (in terms of what number of years to call your age) as of
just past 12 midnight at the BEGINNING of your birthday.
If you are a horse, of course, none of this applies. All "yearlings"
turn a year "older" at midnight on January 1.
> From what I've seen of Social
> Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
> day before our birthday.
Huh? Citations please. I think your math is wrong, or silly, or
both. Or, you are reading conclusions into the laws that those laws
were not meant to imply.
> For example, when I started school and the intent was for all children
> born in the calendar year 5 years before to be eligible for
> kindergarten,
WHO SAYS that was their intent? I doubt the law even includes such
language regarding the school board's "intent" in the sense of stating
such an abstract principle, as opposed to just OPERATIONALIZING the
actual parameters that they intended would apply. As I read the
intent (purpose) of that law -- i.e. what it is trying to accomplish
-- based just on what you said, it could not be more crystal clear.
That intent was simply to have all children who were at least 5 years
old BY NO LATER THAN JANUARY 1 (of the calendar year that begins in
the MIDDLE of the school year), to be eligible to enroll in
kindergarten for that school year. Here's how it works:
[scene: school office, any given August]
PARENT: We'd like to enroll our son Sammie in kindergarten, please.
PRINCIPAL: Will little Sammie be 5 years old by next January 1?
PARENT: Yes.
PRINCIPAL: Okay, welcome aboard. Here's the enrollment forms.....
[OR]
PARENT: No.
PRINCIPAL: Sorry, come back next year. There are some good private
nursery schools around....
It is only YOU, not the school board, who are reading some "born in
the calendar year" meaning into this rule, which I assume you are
doing at least in part because of the approximate congruity of those
cutoff dates with the beginning of the calendar year. In some
states, the cutoff date is in some month OTHER THAN January, which
makes it far more obvious that we are talking about apples and oranges
and not making unwarranted inferences of "calendar year" intent.
> the actual dates were January 2, 1947 thru January 1,
> 1948.
Which means, if you wanted to start kindergarten (in your School
District) in the fall of 1952, you had to be born NO LATER THAN
January 1, 1948 - because in your state, January 1 was the CUTOFF
DATE, in order for you to be 5 years old by January 1, 1953 (which
would be your birthday, if you were born on January 1, or would be
several days or moths AFTER your birthday if you were 5-years-plus-
whatever old by that cutoff date).
Didn't you start school in August, or September, not January?
Usually the intent of the school board rule is that the child must be
at least 5 years old _by_ (that is, on _or_ before) some cutoff date
(LATER than the beginning of the school year), which date _varies_ by
state (or by school district). Here in MD, the cutoff is the first
of December, not the first of January. My son was born later in Dec.
and so he would have had to wait another full year to begin free
public schooling (but since we had him enrolled in a Jewish day school
already, for nursery school, he was just going to continue there, so
it didn't make a personal difference for our family).
But the school-enrollment rule you cite DOES NOT mean "you turn 5 on
the day before your fifth birthday." That is YOUR unfounded
conclusion, and nothing the school board rule you cite says supports
that mistaken assumption. If you were born on January 1, 1948, then
January 1, 1953 _was_ your fifth birthday, meaning YOU WERE OLD ENOUGH
per this rule to enroll in free public kindergarten for the 1952-1953
school year, beginning in Fall 1952. If you were born on or after
January 2, 1947, that meant you were FIVE YEARS AND (up to) 364 DAYS
old by the January 1 cutoff date, so you ALSO were old enough (i.e.
older than the minimum, but not TOO old) to enroll in kindergarten for
the 1952-1953 school year. But if you were born on January 1, 1947,
that meant you were already SIX years old by January 1, 1948, meaning
you should BE ENROLLED IN FIRST GRADE that year, not in kindergarten
(and that your parents should have gotten off the stick and started
enrolling you in school the year BEFORE).
> We also see this with income tax, where a child born on January
> 1, 2010 can be claimed as a dependent on the parents 2009 return
> (i.e., as though born in 2009).
THAT has nothing to do with when your baby was LEGALLY born. It's a
baby present from the IRS, mainly because it is HARD TO TELL whether a
child was born at 11:59 pm on Dec. 31 or 12:01 am on Jan 1, and the
IRS simply doesn't want to get into such arguments - they would spend
more on lawyers, etc. to take just a few such cases to court than they
give away by letting EVERY New Year's Baby give his or her parents an
extra year's worth of dependent exemption for the kid.
> Finally, with Social Security,
> eligibility starts with the first full month following the 62nd
> birthday, but it's the month of the 62nd birthday if the birthday is
> on the first or second
Okay. Because that's specifically what the Social Security law SAYS
should happen, NOT because of any generic assumption about "when you
turn 62 years old."
> (because somebody born on the 2nd is considered
> born on the first,
No, that's NOT why, and is NOT what it means. The rule just IS what
it IS. If being born on the 2nd AUTOMATICALLY by law was the same as
being born on the 1st, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE TO SPECIFY THE DATES IN THE
RULE. Again, you are drawing unwarranted conclusions from one very
specific situation where the law SPELLS OUT the actual result it
wants; hopefully you can tell this is wrong because, if we were simply
going by the default when-were-you-born rule, we would get a DIFFERENT
result than the one the legislators wanted for this particular
situation.
> and thus will be 62 the entire month).
No - more accurately, you should say the SS Admin will treat you, for
their purposes, _AS_IF_ you were 62 for the entire month. That is
DIFFERENT than saying you legally _WERE_ 62 for the entire month, for
_all_ intents and purposes.
> In a
> related case, my co-worker's wife was born on Nov 1 and was eligible
> for Medicare <snip>
Medicare = same type of deal as Soc Sec. I won't rehash the
rationale, see the discussion above.
> I remember hearing about this years ago, when college students would
> try to get a drink the night before their 21st birthday by showing
> some copy of some law that said they were legally 21.
That"s just stupid. It's like that old song "I am my own
grandfather." Doesn't work that way.
Maybe 1 or 2 such brainiacs were able to con some half-drunk bartender
into letting them buy a drink. But YOU already knew that was wrong,
didn't you?!
> So when exactly, and is there a specific time-of-day, does our age
> increment by a year?
_On_ your birthday, that is, beginning at a split-nanosecond after the
clock ticks past the midnight (local time, regardless of what time
zone you were born in) which marks the end of the day _before_ your
birthday (which was the _last_ day on which you could truthfully claim
the _previous_ age in years).
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Seth
Mike Jacobs <mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Aug 2, 10:09 pm, Stan K <stanle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> When, legally, are we a year older?
>Actually, the precise means of calculating the one-year-older date
>vary by state law, so YMMV.
As usual, the correct answer is "it depends".
>> From what I've seen of Social
>> Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
>> day before our birthday.
>
>Huh? Citations please.
http://www.abc.state.va.us/licensing/abcfaq1.htm
> I think your math is wrong, or silly, or both.
The never stopped the government before.
>> I remember hearing about this years ago, when college students would
>> try to get a drink the night before their 21st birthday by showing
>> some copy of some law that said they were legally 21.
>
>That"s just stupid. It's like that old song "I am my own
>grandfather." Doesn't work that way.
>
>Maybe 1 or 2 such brainiacs were able to con some half-drunk bartender
>into letting them buy a drink.
They appear to have conned the Virginia government.
> But YOU already knew that was wrong, didn't you?!
You should have stuck with "it depends".
>> So when exactly, and is there a specific time-of-day, does our age
>> increment by a year?
For what purpose?
Seth
Gordon Burditt
>> 1, 2010 can be claimed as a dependent on the parents 2009 return
>> (i.e., as though born in 2009).
>
>THAT has nothing to do with when your baby was LEGALLY born. It's a
>baby present from the IRS, mainly because it is HARD TO TELL whether a
>child was born at 11:59 pm on Dec. 31 or 12:01 am on Jan 1, and the
>IRS simply doesn't want to get into such arguments - they would spend
>more on lawyers, etc. to take just a few such cases to court than they
>give away by letting EVERY New Year's Baby give his or her parents an
>extra year's worth of dependent exemption for the kid.
How does that solve the problem? They've moved the time deadline.
Now the people whose babies were born on Jan 1 23:59 or Jan 2 00:01
are going to be the ones doing the arguing. I don't think the
argument "but the whole Jan 1 day was a gift anyway" will stop the
arguing. Neither will setting the deadline to something else,
like Jan 1 13:14:15.92.
Unless you've got some argument like "Fewer babies are born around
Jan 1 23:59 than Dec 31 23:59 because most of the doctors still
have hangovers from the previous night" or because "drunk mothers-to-be
give birth earlier in the day because they're drunk", or "most of
the very pregnant mothers-to-be died in traffic accidents on the
way home in the early AM of Jan 1", this doesn't make sense (not
that any of the previous arguments do, unless you've got stats to
back them up). And I don't think the babies pay attention to the
availability of doctors. If there's a cutoff time, people will
argue about it.
Incidentally, I suspect the story about the bar letting them drink
the previous night before their 18th or 21st birthday may be true
BECAUSE THE BAR STAYS OPEN AFTER MIDNIGHT (in some areas bars are
allowed to), therefore the birthday boy is now 1 year older, and
can now legally drink.
Seth
Gordon Burditt <gordon...@burditt.org> wrote:
>Incidentally, I suspect the story about the bar letting them drink
>the previous night before their 18th or 21st birthday may be true
>BECAUSE THE BAR STAYS OPEN AFTER MIDNIGHT (in some areas bars are
>allowed to), therefore the birthday boy is now 1 year older, and
>can now legally drink.
Due to several deaths of new 21-year-olds (because the bars closed at
1 AM, so they drank all they could for that hour), Minnesota changed
the law so that now it's legal to drink in a bar only after noon on
your 21st birthday. (I believe you can still buy at a liquor store
before that, but if you've taken the stuff home, there's no incentive
to drink it quickly.)
Seth
Charlie K
> We also see this with income tax, where a child born on January
> 1, 2010 can be claimed as a dependent on the parents 2009 return
> (i.e., as though born in 2009).
That's not true. Although it is true that if you turn 65 on Jan 1, you
are considerd to be 65 the prior year for exemption purposes.
State law in Nevada uses your birthday, not the day prior.
Mike Jacobs
> >> We also see this with income tax, where a child born on January
> >> 1, 2010 can be claimed as a dependent on the parents 2009 return
> >> (i.e., as though born in 2009).
>
> >THAT has nothing to do with when your baby was LEGALLY born. It's a
> >baby present from the IRS, mainly because it is HARD TO TELL whether a
> >child was born at 11:59 pm on Dec. 31 or 12:01 am on Jan 1, and the
> >IRS simply doesn't want to get into such arguments
> How does that solve the problem?
It _doesn't_, in any logical sense, but it does, in a practical and
psychological sense.
The person whose kid is born at or near midnight on the TAIL end of
January 1, KNOWS beyond cavil that his kid was NOT born during the
preceding year, and that there is no _right_ for him to claim a tax
exemption for that new dependent during the preceding year, regardless
of whether the doctor wrote 11:59 pm or 12:01 am as the "time of
birth."
But, psychologically, the IRS probably figured that taxpayers whose
babies were born on New Year's Eve (at or shortly before the
_beginning_ of January 1) were much more likely to litigate the issue
of which year their baby was born in, or to con their doctors into
fudging the kid's birth certificate, or whatever, and that the public
interest in both maintaining accurate vital records (unbiased by tax
considerations) and in avoiding unnecessary litigation would both be
served by giving those born on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day a
"pass" to count _as_if_ they were born during the preceding year. No
one psychologically thinks of the time after sundown on January 1 as
still part of "New Year's _DAY_ however, because it _is_ no longer
day, it is _night_. Thus, much less likely for the person whose kid
gets born just after midnight on January 2 to raise any kind of fuss
about being deprived of some tax benefit.
> They've moved the time deadline.
> Now the people whose babies were born on Jan 1 23:59 or Jan 2 00:01
> are going to be the ones doing the arguing.
But are they really? Actual experience shows that in fact they are
_not_ arguing, at least not in any significant numbers, and what
possible legal grounds would they have to stand on anyway, to argue
that their kid was born during the preceding YEAR?
> I don't think the
> argument "but the whole Jan 1 day was a gift anyway" will stop the
> arguing. Neither will setting the deadline to something else,
> like Jan 1 13:14:15.92.
Agreed. Except for the factor of human psychology, which does not
always conform to strict Vulcan logic. If Mr. Spock were writing the
tax code, it may have turned out with a different rule.
> Unless you've got some argument like "Fewer babies are born around
> Jan 1 23:59 than Dec 31 23:59 because most of the doctors still
> have hangovers from the previous night" or because "drunk mothers-to-be
> give birth earlier in the day because they're drunk", or "most of
> the very pregnant mothers-to-be died in traffic accidents on the
> way home in the early AM of Jan 1", this doesn't make sense
None of which are necessary to justify giving January 1 babies a "free
pass."
I see the point as being the IRS saying, "We are of a mind that
whatever the DOCTORS put on the birth certificate is going to be
conclusively PRESUMED to be true, PERIOD, to avoid litigation; but,
JUST because there are a FEW people with January 1 birthdates per the
official records who MIGHT have _actually_ been born before midnight,
i.e. on December 31 of the previous year, we are going to say that ALL
January 1 babies (as shown by the official time of birth on their
official birth certificate) qualify as a tax exemption for their
parents in the previous year.
"However, all you moms and dads out there whose babies were born on
January 2, according to their birth certificates? There is NO CHANCE
that your kid actually got borned during December, hon. Therefore,
cry all you want about the unfair extra gift we are giving to SOME of
the January 1 new parents, but you do NOT qualify by ANY stretch, so
qwitchabellyachin'."
> (not
> that any of the previous arguments do, unless you've got stats to
> back them up).
Stats not necessary.
And I don't think the babies pay attention to the
> availability of doctors. If there's a cutoff time, people will
> argue about it.
The ACTUAL cutoff date is the midnight that ends the day of December
31.
What the IRS is doing is simply saying that, as a matter of auditing
or of suing taxpayers in tax court, THE IRS WILL NOT CONTEST the
matter if people whose babies were born on January 1 _claim_ that
their babies actually popped out of Mom on December 31 but that the
attending doctors just took a few too many minutes to get around to
looking at a clock and writing down the "time of birth" on the
official certificate. THAT _is_ a genuinely litigiable issue, but as
to such issues the IRS just says, "we don't want to fight that issue;
we're telling you up front you will get a free pass if you make such a
claim."
However, for someone whose baby's certificate of birth says January 2,
the MOST the parents could possibly argue is that their kid was
actually born on January 1, and thus there is NO WAY that such a kid
actually was born during the preceding year, so the IRS will _not_
allow such a claim of exemption. If such a claim is made, the IRS
will fight it, and the IRS will win, because there is no way the
parents of any January 2 baby can prove their kid actually _was_ born
the preceding year.
> Incidentally, I suspect the story about the bar letting them drink
> the previous night before their 18th or 21st birthday may be true
> BECAUSE THE BAR STAYS OPEN AFTER MIDNIGHT (in some areas bars are
> allowed to), therefore the birthday boy is now 1 year older, and
> can now legally drink.
In part I agree with you there. See my other post replying to Seth
in this thread today for more details.
Mike Jacobs
> Mike Jacobs <mjacobs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Aug 2, 10:09 pm, Stan K <stanle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> When, legally, are we a year older?
> >Actually, the precise means of calculating the one-year-older date
> >vary by state law, so YMMV.
>
> As usual, the correct answer is "it depends".
On that, we are agreed. But there are still general principles that
can be stated.
> >> From what I've seen of Social
> >> Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
> >> day before our birthday.
>
> >Huh? Citations please.
>
> http://www.abc.state.va.us/licensing/abcfaq1.htm
Let's pause for a moment before continuing. First, I did look up the
website Seth cited and was able to find and verify that, as Seth
notes, the above-cited FAQ page of the Va. Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage
Control (ABC) on its official website includes the following Q and A:
"When does a person reach their 21st birthday? The Attorney
General's Office has opined that a person attains his/her next year of
age on the day prior to his/her birthday."
Right off, the grammar and syntax of the ABC foax is suspect, inasmuch
as they ask, "When does _A_ person (singular) reach _THEIR_ (plural)
21st birthday (again singular)?" So you already know "they" (the
ABC's FAQ drafters) are paraphrasing quite a bit, and colloquializing
their syntax, to boot, assuming the Va AG ever said any such thing.
Further, the ABC FAQ gives no citation to the _actual_ place and
language in which "the Attorney General's Office has [so] opined."
Thus, wanting to dig deeper, I Googled the terms "virginia attorney
general opinions" (without the quotes) and was directed readily (top
of the hit list) to the Va. AG's own official website at
http://www.oag.state.va.us/opinions/index.html
where I typed "alcohol 21" into the site's internal "search" box and
came up with about 3 pages of hits, NONE OF WHICH contained the
apocryphal "official AG opinion" that for alcohol purposes, a person
turns 21 on the day before his 21st birthday. Maybe Seth would have
better luck finding it than I did, and he is welcome to try.
Okay, so I tried again, leaving out "alcohol" in case that word was
not mentioned in the opinion, and just searched the official AG
Opinion website for "birthday 21" and the only thing that popped up
was some opinion regarding compulsory education until age 18, with the
"21" coming up only as a paragraph number, not as an age in years.
Further Googling of the concept "virginia day before 21 birthday
alcohol" yielded a number of blog posts, wikis, etc. all of which
referred back to the ABC website as their source, but NONE OF WHICH
went any DEEPER to find an ACTUAL written official opinion of the
Virginia Attorney General to that effect.
Perhaps the head of the Va. Dept. of ABC simply picked up the phone
one day and _called_ the state AG on the "alcohol hotline" and said,
"Hey, Ken [Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, the current Attorney General of
Virginia], do y'all think it's okay with you if I go ahead and tell my
ABC store boys that they can sell booze to some good ol' Virginian who
walks into my store on the day before his 21st birthday? Cuz, ya
know, Ken, we-all _close_ them ABC stores by midnight, and we ain't
open at all on Sunday, and that means the poor fella will have to wait
to the _next_ day - or maybe even until Monday - to buy booze to
celebrate turning 21 with, and y'all know how important that big day
is to us Virginians." To which Ken might simply have said, "Yes" and
then forgotten all about it. I dunno, that's just a guess.
Without rehashing the entire search process I went through, the upshot
appears to be that one CAN indeed _PURCHASE_ carryout, packaged
alcohol from a state-owned ABC _STORE_ in Virginia the day before
one's 21st birthday. Several posters to several blogs pointed out
that when they personally have walked into an ABC store in VA - which,
BTW, have the _monopoly_ on package sales in VA - the official ABC
sign that is always posted near the register says "if you were not
born ON OR BEFORE this date, you may not purchase alcoholic beverages"
and it always shows the calendar day FOLLOWING the current day (as of
nearly 21 years ago that is) - so, frex, the sign yesterday (Saturday,
August 7, 2010) would have read, "If you were not born on or before
August 8, 1989, you may not purchase...."
Why do they do this, you may ask? Well, it's only a guess, but
several bloggers guessed that the ABC stores in Va do this because
THEY ARE CLOSED well before midnight most nights, and are CLOSED ON
SUNDAY every week, so that just in case a person who was about to turn
21 (and who had no older friends to buy it for him) wanted to buy some
booze from the ABC store with which to celebrate his 21st birthday by
imbibing alcohol starting at that split-nanosecond-after-midnight that
I mentioned in my first reply to Stan K, HE COULD BUY the booze on the
previous day when the store was open, and carry it home, but he still
could NOT LEGALLY CONSUME the booze or open the bottle until he
actually turned 21 - i.e., after midnight.
Other blog posters also pointed out (apparently also from personal
experience) that BARS in Va. will not serve a 20-year-plus-364-day-old
person alcohol, until AFTER midnight, when the calendar turns a new
leaf, at which point the youngster becomes of legal age to actually
DRINK the stuff. All that the ABC rule in question allows him to do
is to BUY and POSSESS closed containers of the stuff one day early.
Please note that this is a FAR CRY from saying the AG issued a formal
opinion that, for ALL intents and purposes, whether we are talking
about a 5-year-old, a 21-year-old, or a 62-year-old, "a person attains
his/her next year of age on the day prior to his/her birthday." That
summary (quoted as it appears on the ABC FAQ website) is a mere
shorthand, and slightly inaccurate, way of referring to the single
EXCEPTION which the ABC has carved out for ITS OWN (package store)
purposes, from the general State rule that permits sales of alcohol
only to persons 21 or older, and says nothing about how the State of
Virginia calculates one's birthday in general or one's 21st birthday
in particular.
Apparently, Alabama also has a similar law, according to one of the Q-
and-A sites I found, but I did not research that at all and do not
know the basis for that conclusion.
Anyway, if the Va. AG _did_ in fact give the ABC board an "official
opinion" that it is okay for kids one day short of their 21st birthday
to PURCHASE alcohol in an ABC store, he DID NOT do so as a PUBLISHED,
publicly available, officially indexed and numbered "Opinion of the
Virginia Attorney General" - or at least, I was not able to _find_ any
such opinion on the AG's own official website. Seth?
Back to our regularly scheduled discussion:
> > I think your math is wrong, or silly, or both.
>
> The never stopped the government before.
True that. But here, I think what we have is simply a limited,
_carved-out_exception_ being wrongfully stated as though it were the
_general_rule_ of when one attains a certain age. In VA, that
exception does _not_ apply for _all_ purposes (assuming there were
some _other_ area of legal regulation, besides alcohol, which only
those over 21 could legally do) and, it seems, the exception does not
even apply to all _alcohol_-related issues - only to whether a not-
quite-21-year-old Virginian can BUY packaged alcohol from an ABC store
on the day before his birthday, and may legally POSSESS those bottles
or cans in their unopened state, up until the magical moment when he
DOES actually turn 21, at which point all of the ABC stores in his
neighborhood are likely to be already closed. Bartenders are still
going to have to wait until midnight before they can legally serve
him, if their bar is open that late.
> >> I remember hearing about this years ago, when college students would
> >> try to get a drink the night before their 21st birthday by showing
> >> some copy of some law that said they were legally 21.
>
> >That"s just stupid. It's like that old song "I am my own
> >grandfather." Doesn't work that way.
>
> >Maybe 1 or 2 such brainiacs were able to con some half-drunk bartender
> >into letting them buy a drink.
>
> They appear to have conned the Virginia government.
Maybe not, given the above discussion. Arguing that one should apply
to situation A (bars) a specific, limited legal exception that was
carved out for purposes of situation B (package stores) is exactly the
kind of "conning a half-drunk bartender" I was referring to.
> > But YOU already knew that was wrong, didn't you?!
>
> You should have stuck with "it depends".
The way Stan K related the story of the college kids conning a
bartender, it was apparent he only heard it as an apocryphal _attempt_
by said kids to get booze the day before they were legally allowed to
do so and that (at least most) bartenders would _refuse_ to serve such
a person until it was legally the following day (i.e. the customer's
actual birthday, after midnight).
I do stand corrected as to ABC stores in VA, and possibly as to
whatever cockamamie logic for a similar result the legislature or the
administrative agencies of Alabama have, in their wisdom, cooked up,
but I think I stand vindicated as to the general principle I was
discussing with Stan, which is that, even though the law may
frequently carve out exceptions to a general minimum-age law to meet
certain circumstances, that does _not_ change the way in which that
state calculates one's age for all _other_ purposes.
> >> So when exactly, and is there a specific time-of-day, does our age
> >> increment by a year?
>
> For what purpose?
Good point, but only if by "For what purpose" you imply the longer
version, "For what purpose will the law carve out a special exception
and treat us _AS_IF_ our age incremented by a year on the day _before_
our actual birthday?" Because that's all it is - an exception - and
one's birthday _IS_ one's birthday, period, and _that_ is the day at
the beginning of which (i.e. starting just after the midnight which
marks its beginning) you "turn" the next incremental year older, in
the common American system of counting age.
The main point I made to Stan K still stands, which is, if the law in
a given state DID provide that one turns the next incremental age on
the day before one's birthday _for_all_purposes_, then it would not be
necessary to specify exceptions in particular circumstances where,
REGARDLESS of one's actual age, the law intends to permit a different
result than what would obtain by applying the general rule. In other
words, the existence of (and need to specifically mention) an
exception proves the existence of a _different_ general rule.
Stan K
> On Aug 2, 10:09 pm, Stan K <stanle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > When, legally, are we a year older?
> > Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
> > day before our birthday.
>
> Huh? Citations please. I think your math is wrong, or silly, or
> both. Or, you are reading conclusions into the laws that those laws
> were not meant to imply.
I saw this at http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/441/related/1;
I was having trouble finding this after I posted my question to this
newsgroup, but this is what I had seen a few months ago, and on which
my original posting was based.
Here's the text from this Social Security FAQ-
Month I will receive my first check.
Updated 08/02/2010 01:13 PM | ID #441
I will be 62 on August 2 of this year and that's when I plan on
retiring. Will my first benefit check be for the month of August or
September?
Since you were born on the second day of the month, your first month
of entitlement will be the month you were born, August. To receive
retirement benefits, you must be at least age 62 for the entire
month. Since you were born on August 2, YOU LEGALLY ATTAIN YOUR AGE
ON AUGUST 1 (CAPS are mine); therefore, you are eligible for benefits
for August because you are considered 62 for the entire month.
However, you will receive your first benefit check in September.
Social Security benefits are paid in the month following the month for
which they are due.
Mike Jacobs
> On Aug 5, 8:18 pm, Mike Jacobs <mjacobs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 2, 10:09 pm, Stan K <stanle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > When, legally, are we a year older?
> > > From what I've seen of Social
> > > Security policy and school enrollment policy, it looks like it's the
> > > day before our birthday.
>
> > Huh? Citations please. I think your math is wrong, or silly, or
> > both. Or, you are reading conclusions into the laws that those laws
> > were not meant to imply.
> Here's the text from this Social Security FAQ-
> I will be 62 on August 2 of this year and that's when I plan on
> retiring. Will my first benefit check be for the month of August or
> September?
>
> Since you were born on the second day of the month, your first month
> of entitlement will be the month you were born, August. To receive
> retirement benefits, you must be at least age 62 for the entire
> month. Since you were born on August 2, YOU LEGALLY ATTAIN YOUR AGE
> ON AUGUST 1 (CAPS are mine); therefore, you are eligible for benefits
> for August because you are considered 62 for the entire month.
This is from a FAQ website addressed to non-legally-sophisticated lay
readers, Stan. It is just as over-simplified as some of the examples
of insider-trading and stock-buy-back pricing I gave over on another
thread on MLM recently, and, while both are technically INACCURATE if
we are talking strictly about fine points of the law, both are USEFUL
if they get across the message we wanted to get across. They are
both PARAPHRASES of what the actual law actually says, just as was the
Virginia ABC Dept.s FAQ website which said their state Attorney
General had opined one turns 21 on the day before one's 21st
birthday. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, just as much as saying "the Devil made
me do it" is wrong because there ain't no such thing as a Devil,
although the _concept_ helps us explain difficult abstract concepts
like good and evil.
Stan, I am _not_ going to research the actual statutes and regulations
governing the eligibility age for receiving Social Security benefits,
just to respond to this post. But a FAQ on a public website run by
the Soc Sec Admin is _not_ the kind of "authority" I was looking for,
when I asked you for a citation. If you want to take the time
yourself to look up the ACTUAL, underlying legal authority for what it
says on that FAQ, be my guest. I suspect your result will be similar
to what I uncovered when I _did_ research one of the _other_ examples
you came up with, that of the not-quite-21-year-old being able to buy
booze. Which also turned out to be a paraphrase which, really, only
meant the ABC was saying, "WE WILL TREAT YOU AS IF you were the
critical age even if, IN LAW for all other purposes, you don't turn
that age until the next day." So, I still highly suspect the Soc Sec
Admin is simply saying, "WE WILL TREAT YOU as if you were 62 for the
entire month, even if your 62nd birthday falls on the 2nd day of the
month and that is the day you turn 62 for ALL OTHER purposes."
Period.
Let us know if you find anything.
nos...@isp.com
To Stan K and others who approach law related issues as you do:
One might think that, at least as a result of cautionaries including
explanations to this effect from numerous persons who responded to
your many queries to this law related newsgroup, you would know by now
that, for law related purposes, particular context including
identification of the context specific purposes for which a question
is asked is an essential precondition to meaningful analysis.
Despite this, you began this thread with what appears to be only an
unconditional/open-ended question ("When does someone's age legally go
up by one year?") which, as such, suggests that you presumed that
there is one simply stateable and generally applicable ("One Size Fits
All !!" ?) answer at the same time, however, that you also included a
reference to Soc. Sec. Admin. "policy" (but about what subjects you
decided not to say) and also to public school administers' age/grade
determinations (but without identifying what schools where), etc.
Notwithstanding your decision not to identify which (if any)
particular such "policy" was of concern to you, you nonetheless opined
that, to you, it "looks like" for the purposes of "Social Security
policy" that "legally, [we] are . . . a year older . . . the day
before our birthday" although, after one of your respondents asked for
a citation to authority you would contend supported that guess, and
apparently presuming this to be an explanation, you replied:
> I . . . posted my question to this newsgroup [after reading
> this excerpt which] I saw at . . .
> http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/441/related/1
> . . . from this Social Security FAQ -
>
> Month I will receive my first check. * * * I will be
> 62 on August 2 of this year and that's when I plan on
> retiring. Will my first benefit check be for the month
> of August or September?
>
> Since you were born on the second day of the month, your
> first month of entitlement will be the month you were
> born, August. To receive retirement benefits, you must be
> at least age 62 for the entire month. Since you were born
> on August 2, YOU LEGALLY ATTAIN YOUR AGE ON
> AUGUST 1 (CAPS are mine); therefore, you are elibible
> for benefits for August because you are considered 62 for
> for the entire month. * * *
This is an accurately quoted excerpt from the cited FAQ and so if,
instead of your assigned subject's merely generalized query, your
actual question when your first posted concerned that FAQ's subject
matter (though, disregarding the need for context, you still have not
actually so said), your still flawed (general) reasoning would not
matter.
But given your continuing here your pattern of extrapolating generally
from your own interpretations of partially recalled and, at that, only
partially articulated scenarios, your incorrectly attempted inference
triggered by this FAQ suggests that you would benefit from less
careless reading and more careful thought about your
intellectual/reasoning approach to what (to use your word) "legally"
is so re. [This] or [That] subject matter.
That is, the portion of this FAQ you quote is not addressed to what
you apparently referred to as general "Social Security policy" and, to
the contrary, is confined to one particular/narrow such policy --
namely, and in light of (depending on particular context) statutory
language differences for particular social security purposes of "in"
or "within" or "throughout" a month, if a person re. whom the needed
underlying contributions in question had been made, etc., was born on
the first or second calendar day of the month, computing when, in any
particular month (the benefits in question being required by
applicable law to be computable and payable on a monthly basis), that
person will be deemed to have attained age sixty-two for the purposes
of determining eligibility for "early retirement" social security
payments as distinguished from other kinds of social security
retirement and other benefits (and, even then, is further limited to
persons born after August 1981).
In other words, the FAQ you cite and from which you quote in part does
not support the inference you claim to make that, for other social
security related purposes (or, if you prefer, "polic[ies]") -- and
much less for all other purposes -- "legally, [we] are . . . a year
older . . . the day before our birthday" since neither that FAQ nor
the underlying principles of law it attempts to summarize addresses
birthdays and anniversaries of birthdays of persons who are not born
on the first or second day calendar day of whatever is the month in
question for any other purposes.
In addition, while a FAQ published by the Soc. Sec. Admin. about its
statutory and regulatory mandate as it interprets that mandate to be
does provide some information about what applicable law provides, and
so ordinarily can be relied on by lay persons for most FAQ-relevant
purposes, that such a FAQ is, on its face, no more than an
interpretative paraphrase of its authors' understanding (or,
sometimes, lack of understanding or, in rare instances, perhaps of
deliberate misrepresentation) (though, as it happens, it is correct
re. the narrow subject it addressed), obviously makes it not the sort
of law-based support requested of you.
Again, however: If you had made clear that your query by which you
began this thread was limited to whether the subject of that FAQ
accurately summarizes the particular provisions of the Social Security
Act (in U.S. Code Tit. 42) and the CFR and the Soc. Sec. Admin.
Program Operations Manual System ("POMS") on which it purports to be
based as in effect when the FAQ was published, then these comments
admittedly would be superfluous.
It therefore is only because of your still insufficiently appreciated
need to attend to particular context, which too often is shared by
others who read the postings and themselves post to this newsgroup,
that I make these in the nature of a "P.S." to the earlier posted
responses to your initiating posting.
If, however, you still refuse or are intellectually or emotionally
unable to refrain from not sufficiently data based generalities, then,
at least, you might want to pay more attention to how you frame your
queries -- e.g., here, maybe something like,
When is one deemed one year older if/when
there is no law applicable to the age-determiner
for the purposes of [specifically identified
scenario] that provides otherwise?
although, of course, you know the answer to that question (as other
respondents directly or in effect also said) -- namely, on the
calendar day anniversary of one's birth (re. which, BTW, even the
number of days that "legally" comprise a "year" can vary depending on
context, too.).
Seth
>> http://www.abc.state.va.us/licensing/abcfaq1.htm
(Which I wouldn't have believed if it weren't the state's official
website.)
>Let's pause for a moment before continuing. First, I did look up the
>website Seth cited and was able to find and verify that, as Seth
>notes, the above-cited FAQ page of the Va. Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage
>Control (ABC) on its official website includes the following Q and A:
>
>"When does a person reach their 21st birthday? The Attorney
>General's Office has opined that a person attains his/her next year of
>age on the day prior to his/her birthday."
>
>Right off, the grammar and syntax of the ABC foax is suspect, inasmuch
>as they ask, "When does _A_ person (singular) reach _THEIR_ (plural)
>21st birthday (again singular)?"
"non-sexist" language has been using the plural for an unmarked
singular for a number of years now. The earliest usage I recall is
from Shakespeare.
>Further, the ABC FAQ gives no citation to the _actual_ place and
>language in which "the Attorney General's Office has [so] opined."
> Maybe Seth would have
>better luck finding it than I did, and he is welcome to try.
It's not on that site under anything I could think of
>Further Googling of the concept "virginia day before 21 birthday
>alcohol" yielded a number of blog posts, wikis, etc. all of which
>referred back to the ABC website as their source, but NONE OF WHICH
>went any DEEPER to find an ACTUAL written official opinion of the
>Virginia Attorney General to that effect.
If someone acts based on what the official state ABC website says, is
that a sufficient defense?
>Without rehashing the entire search process I went through, the upshot
>appears to be that one CAN indeed _PURCHASE_ carryout, packaged
>alcohol from a state-owned ABC _STORE_ in Virginia the day before
>one's 21st birthday.
The ABC also regulates liquor licenses, so wouldn't its statements
also apply to bars and restaurants? That answer didn't specify
stores.
>Other blog posters also pointed out (apparently also from personal
>experience) that BARS in Va. will not serve a 20-year-plus-364-day-old
>person alcohol, until AFTER midnight, when the calendar turns a new
>leaf, at which point the youngster becomes of legal age to actually
>DRINK the stuff. All that the ABC rule in question allows him to do
>is to BUY and POSSESS closed containers of the stuff one day early.
Either that, or the bars are being slightly stricter than the law (or
at least their licensing agency) requires.
>> > I think your math is wrong, or silly, or both.
>>
>> The never stopped the government before.
>
>True that. But here, I think what we have is simply a limited,
>_carved-out_exception_ being wrongfully stated as though it were the
>_general_rule_ of when one attains a certain age. In VA, that
>exception does _not_ apply for _all_ purposes (assuming there were
>some _other_ area of legal regulation, besides alcohol, which only
>those over 21 could legally do) and, it seems, the exception does not
>even apply to all _alcohol_-related issues - only to whether a not-
>quite-21-year-old Virginian can BUY packaged alcohol from an ABC store
>on the day before his birthday,
A later paragraph, about working age, has the answer "For immediate
family members there is no age requirement. For example, it would be
permissible for the owner's child who is 11 year's old to run the cash
register." That would seem to imply that ABC stores are privately
owned, since the state doesn't have children.
> and may legally POSSESS those bottles
>or cans in their unopened state, up until the magical moment when he
>DOES actually turn 21, at which point all of the ABC stores in his
>neighborhood are likely to be already closed. Bartenders are still
>going to have to wait until midnight before they can legally serve
>him, if their bar is open that late.
They are regulated by the ABC just like stores are, so I still don't
see why the ABC's rule wouldn't apply to them.
>> >Maybe 1 or 2 such brainiacs were able to con some half-drunk bartender
>> >into letting them buy a drink.
>>
>> They appear to have conned the Virginia government.
>
>Maybe not, given the above discussion. Arguing that one should apply
>to situation A (bars) a specific, limited legal exception that was
>carved out for purposes of situation B (package stores) is exactly the
>kind of "conning a half-drunk bartender" I was referring to.
I really didn't see anything referring to stores in that answer.
In fact, based on later answers, it would appear that one can work as
a bartender (or supervisor at an ABC store) the day before his 21st
birthday.
>> >> So when exactly, and is there a specific time-of-day, does our age
>> >> increment by a year?
>>
>> For what purpose?
>
>Good point, but only if by "For what purpose" you imply the longer
>version, "For what purpose will the law carve out a special exception
>and treat us _AS_IF_ our age incremented by a year on the day _before_
>our actual birthday?" Because that's all it is - an exception -
But why do you assume there aren't other, perhaps even more cockamamie
exceptions to "one instant after midnight on the appropriate
birthday"? I don't know of any, but I doubt anybody can be certain
there are none.
Seth
willfr...@gmail.com
1963 Va. AG LEXIS 215; 1962-1963 Op. Atty Gen. Va. 87