restricted application for Social Security Benefits
Jeffery Levine wrote an article on 3/02/16 about “Emergency Messages” concerning Social Security (SS) rule changes made as part of the BBA of 2015. In particular was the Restricted Application strategy for those born before 1/01/54. My wife and I are both in that age group and tried applying recently at full retirement age (66) but were stymied in the process. I am still working full-time and plan to do so till age 70. I do not want to file for benefits to allow my RIB to continue to grow as well as continue employer-based health insurance with HSA. I have been the primary bread winner with my wife a stay-at-home Mom raising 4 sons. My wife has retired from a part-time job. She wanted to file a Restricted Application to allow for either Spousal benefits alone draw or the combination of RIB and Spousal that equals Spousal. She was told she could not. This appears contrary to the guidance in Mr Levine’s article. Can IRAhelp provide formal guidance to assist in dealing with SS? Peter Thurman
Permalink Submitted by [email protected] on Mon, 2018-03-05 16:53
The rules changed in 2015 as you indicated and may be a bit complicated, so my answer is given with a caveat of “confirm before you act”. With the law change, they also eliminated “File and Suspend”. File and Suspend is what allowed spouses to maximize benefits to the lower earner. The higher earner would File and Suspend, allowing the lower earner to file a restricted claim for spousal benefits only. This would then allow the lower earner to earn DRC on their own benefit, which could end up being higher than 1/2 the higher earner. Since you indicated you are the same age as your wife, it assume you have not filed. Since you have not filed, your wife would not be able to file restricted for spousal. The new rule says spousal is only available if the other is on claim (or had filed/suspended by the deadline in 2015). Instead, what you may want to consider is to have your wife file on her onw benefit at Full Retirement Age and have YOU file restricted for half of her benefit at FRA, leaving yours to grow DRC until age 70. Then, file for your own at age 70. Given your HSA desires, though, this may not be optimal either, in which case she files for her own benefit now at FRA and you wait until 70, at which point she will get a bump up for spousal benefits. Please look for someone that is a SS expert to verify, but those are my understandings. -m