You don't even have that "right." You might want to pay attention to what is transpiring.
Posted on 10/29/2015 6:55:32 PM PDT by SkyPilot
When Congress passed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act in 2000, it introduced a new concept called “voluntary suspension†of benefits, allowing those who had already started Social Security benefits to stop their payments and earn delayed retirement credits. In the process, however, the new voluntary suspension rules unleashed several additional Social Security claiming strategies, including various “claim now, claim more later†tactics involving File-and-Suspend and Restricted Applications for spousal benefits.
Those may be going away. Under this week’s two-year budget agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House, Congress will close these loopholes in the Social Security rules. While it remains to be seen whether the agreement will become law in its current form, the new rules mean that anyone receiving spousal benefits under file-and-suspend would have them terminated next spring
The agreement actually extends the rules for deemed application, making it no longer be possible to file a restricted application for just spousal benefits. In addition, by also extending the “suspension†rules that stipulate that suspending an individual’s benefitsalso suspends any benefits to other people based on the same earnings record, Congress will negate the various “File and Suspend†strategies that permit spousal and dependent benefits to be paid while the primary earner still receives delayed retirement credits.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of this new Social Security crackdown, though, is the effective date. While the new limits to Restricted Application will not apply to anyone who is already age 62 or older in 2015, the new crackdown may suspend current spousal or dependent benefits in 6 months for those who are only receiving those benefits thanks to File-and-Suspend! In other words, those who already engaged in the File-and-Suspend strategy may find it terminated mid-stream, and no benefits will be payable until the individual...
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Well could be. Time for us to do some squeezing back.
“SS is like any other welfare program”
Did you forget the sarcasm tag?
You don't even have that "right." You might want to pay attention to what is transpiring.
Barry needs more money for his Islamofascist and freeloading “refugees”. Taking on the rest of the world’s criminals and poverty can get pretty expensive. Especially when one third of the country’s work force is unemployed.
Yes I do understand the concept.
They cannot do what they want to do, constitutionally. Well, welcome to 2015! How are you holding up? Good? Me too. Glad to know you are grounded in REALITY and not a wack job.
No. Currently, a SS-eligible worker can file for benefits, then suspend those benefits so that they grow until the worker decides to claim them at a later time when he is older and the check will be bigger.
During that “suspension” time, the worker’s spouse can collect on his earnings, even though it is suspended.
This legislation would close that loophole, so that neither retired workers nor their spouses are allowed to draw benefits from a suspended account.
While they’re grabbing you by the ankles and turning you upside down to get the fiat change out of your pockets, they’re showering the gibsmedats with perks. Among the gibsmedats, I include the banks and corporations using cheap fed money to buy back stock and make bets on the sovereign debt of Upper Fongoolistan. Is that prick Corzine in jail yet?
One word: Scary
Perhaps close to that.
Thanks for that explanation.
The “precious government workers” took a weeks pay confiscated. Even if you were an FBI agent closing a child porn case, they took your pay. How do you feel about that?
It never ceases to amaze me how people on welfare are the truly untouchables, but our seniors or military members are fair game.
THAT ^^^
Not my circus..not my monkey....But when did that happen?
AARP lobby will save the seniors! ///sarc
I also say thanks for your post. Reminded me of the good ol’ days at FR before all the comedians took over.
A bi-partisan congress welshes on yet another promise.
And then they and their media flacks wonder why Americans are dissatisfied.
There’s no reason for the SS-eligible worker to file for benefits if he’s going to then suspend them, except for the the spouse’s role.
I’m not sure they’re going to do away with the right of the spouse to draw. She (or he) is entitled to a choice of the spousal benefit or her own benefit upon reaching retirement age. If the spousal benefit is higher than her own, she’s entitled to choose that, and she should be able to draw it even if her husband has chosen to wait until later to draw his own. So he files must and suspend so that she can claim her spousal benefit.
I think the actual loophole (if you can call it that) they’re going after is the one where the spouse files for spousal benefits, takes them for a few years while their own benefit continues to grow, and then switches over to her own benefit at age 70, a benefit that grows 8% per year from age 62 on. This is a confusing opportunity that many people aren’t even aware exists, which might be one reason they’re doing away with it.
Example: Husband is 66 and has filed for SS but plans to defer taking his benefit until it maxes out at age 70. Wife is 66 and files for spousal benefit which is 1/2 of husband’s benefit at age 66. Four years later, she drops the spousal benefit and claims her own which has grown at 8% since age 62 and is now higher than the spousal benefit she’s been receiving.
Right now this is possible to do. I believe the change would be to make it so the spouse can’t take one benefit and then later switch to the higher one. Also, in case you’re curious, only one spouse can claim spousal benefits, so both spouses couldn’t do the same strategy in the above example, only one of them. It takes a unique combination of circumstances for this opportunity to exist, but it does at times and it is taken advantage of by a few.
I would imagine that SS regularly gets complaints from people who after the fact realize they were eligible but missed the opportunity, and that alone would move it to near the top of the pile for suggested changes.
Thanks Jane.
In the above, the last sentence in 2nd paragraph should read: “So he must file and suspend so that she can claim her spousal benefit.
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