So my dad is on disability/retirement pension and they received a letter stating that the SSA overpaid them the last few years and that my parents owe them $20,000. Now I'm sure this is chump change to many here and doesn't sound like a whole lot, but with the amount of bills they have to pay they have no hope in paying these people back for quite some time. Possibly 3 years at the earliest... the SSA sent a letter stating if they don't pay back that money they'll either stop the benefits or deduct money from each check to pay back the owed $20k.
All this to say that I'm infuriated by how evil these people are. It's clearly not my parents fault and they even state in the letter that it's not their fault, but they still spring this shit on their lap. Their lawyer apparently told them that nothing can be done about it either.
I think their SOP is to reclaim ASAP by stopping checks until they have recouped. I'm in a similar boat because I'm below full retirement age and earned about 8k over the cap. So I was told that the IRS sends the W2 to SS, then the SS will stop my checks until the 50% of over-cap is returned.
Your case might be different though. Good luck.
Please explain this if you will. Do you mean that if you continue to have income once you've started on social security, you are penalized? I don't follow. Thanks.
Earned income for people below full retirement age is capped at 19,500 for 2022. Any money earned over the cap costs 50% of over cap to be removed from your SS. in my case the SSA will reclaim about 4,000 since i'm about 8,000 over the cap.
Okay, so let me see if I understand. Let's say full retirement age for you is 65, but you're currently 64 and took SS a little early. And you're still working part time and you earned $19,500 at your job in 2022. So let's say your SS income was 25K, and, you were 'allowed' to earn an additional $19,500, which you did. So your total income for the year was $44,500. And you were NOT penalized because you stayed within the limits of the 19.5K. BUT, if everything else was the same, that you were 64, taking SS early, and you actually earned 50K at your job and 25K through SS for a total of 75K. So at that point, you've gone over what you're 'allowed' to earn by $30,500. So are you saying that HALF of that $30,500 would be taken from you??! I hope I've got that wrong. Because who in the hell ever gave the government permission to rob Americans like that?!! Does it change once you actually reach your full SS age? Same scenario, $30 k over -- do you still get penalized like that? Thanks for the info. It's eye opening.
Yes thats how it works, the cap the year you reach full age is around 50k, fuzzy on how they figure out partial year.
When you reach full retirement age you will get an increased payout of .6% a month for each month of SS they took back. If you lost 1 year then you would get 7.2% increase... take me until about 81 to recoup.
If that's the case it wouldn't apply to my dad since he's retired and isn't making any income, so this isn't a situation of being overpaid benefits based on income but merely an error on the part of the SSA themselves, which is why this is so infuriating.
Fren, I hope you help them fight this. I agree with others who have said it could be a mistake on the SSA's part. That wouldn't be surprising at all. But even if it weren't, it's still THEIR mistake because people don't calculate their own SS benefits. That's done by the government. So you're right, how would your parents have known. Fight, fight, fight! I mean, start out pleasantly with the local SS office. But if you get any guff, fight it through til the end. Maybe find a good constitutional attorney to help. Best of luck to all of you and I hope you'll keep us posted.