social security filing strategy
I am 64 and 10 months old and husband is 66 and 11 months and we have been advised to wait until I (the wife )turn 66 in Aprill of 2017( my full retirement age) to begin taking benefits based on longevity predictions of living to 95 years . My husband then at age 68 files a restricted application for Spousal benefits on the same day . Then at age 70 husband switches to his own benefit and Wife switches to husbands Spousal benefit . My question is that the file and suspend strategy and restricted application have april 2016 deadlines but will I be grandfathered into this claiming strategy from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 that allows people age 62 or older the option of restricting an application to spousal benefits only after the deadline ?
Permalink Submitted by Nathan Kastner on Mon, 2016-02-08 15:28
The deadline for “file and suspend” is April 29th, 2016 (the official deadline is PRIOR to May 1st, but April 29th is the last business day prior to that deadline). You MUST file and suspend by that date or your lose the ability to do so. Forever. There, technically, is NO grandfathering for file and suspend, but rather a sunsetting provision. Since one must be full retirement age in order to use this strategy, the law changes made last November essentially stated that anyone at or within 6 months of reaching FRA can still use file and suspend, but they must do so within that 6 months or they lose the right. Anyone that wasn’t within that 6 month window at the time the bill was passed lost the ability to ever file and suspend the moment the law was passed.Restricted applications, on the other hand, will continue to be available to anyone that was born prior to 1954. It truly is a “grandfather clause” in the traditional sense of the word.