I retired in March 2020 at the age of 66. I signed up for Medicare, and apparently applied for Social Security at the same time, which I did not intend to do. I stopped Social Security payments after receiving checks in April, May and June. Should I return the payments I received so that my benefit when I begin to draw at the age of 70 will be higher? If so, how do I do that?

Hi,

I'm assuming that you did, accidentally at least, actually apply for your Social Security benefits as opposed to being awarded the benefits in error by Social Security. That being the case, since you aren't allowed to voluntarily suspend your benefits retroactively, the only way that you could return the benefits you were paid and receive delayed retirement credits (DRC) for those months is by formally withdrawing your application (https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/withdrawal.html). You would then need to reapply for benefits when you want to start drawing them.

There's probably no right or wrong answer to your question as to whether or not you should return the benefits to get a higher benefit rate later. DRCs add 2/3rds of 1% to your primary insurance amount (PIA) for each month that you don't draw benefits between your full retirement age (FRA) and age 70. So, if you decide to keep the 3 months of benefits and resume drawing your benefits at age 70, your benefit rate will be 2% lower than it would have been had you waited until age 70 to start drawing.

However, if there's a chance that you could potentially become eligible for auxiliary (e.g. spousal, divorced spousal) or survivor benefits before reaching age 70, then not withdrawing your application could prevent you from drawing those benefits. I don't have enough information to know if that's a potential factor in your case or not.

You are generally only allowed one application withdrawal in a lifetime, so if you do decide to withdraw you'll want to be sure to choose the right time to eventually re-apply for benefits. You may want to consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze the options available to you in order to determine your best strategy for maximizing your benefits.

Best, Jerry