An SS examiner determined that a sum of money aside from my 457 was a "pension" and spplief the government pension offset GPO. toward my spousal benefit. Now I am applyong for my own benefit and am well past 70 by 2.months waiting
What is in fact apension uner Social Security. That money was rolled over to an IRA. I have no formal govt pension.

Hi,

A pension for purposes of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision is defined in Social Security's operations manual as follows:

"A pension is a periodic or lump sum payment received from an employer’s retirement or disability plan, which is payable because of retirement or a permanent disability. The payment can be from either a defined benefit or defined contribution plan (e.g., 401(k), 403(b), or 457) and based upon the spouse’s non-covered earnings while in the service of a federal, state, or local government."

I don't have enough information about your circumstances to know if GPO should apply in your case. However, if your filing for own Social Security retirement benefits then GPO would not affect those benefits. The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) could, though. The definition of a pension for purposes of WEP is very similar to that for GPO, but WEP isn't limited to government pensions. Non-government pensions can also cause a WEP reduction. I can't tell you whether or not WEP should apply when calculating the amount of your Social Security retirement benefits, but here is how Social Security's operations manual defines a pension for WEP purposes:

"A pension is a periodic or lump sum payment from an employer's retirement or disability plan, based on employer and/or employee contributions and based on eligibility factors such as age, length of service or earnings. Payments from either defined benefit (DB) or defined contribution (DC) plans may be considered pensions for WEP purposes. For a pension to cause WEP, the payment must be based on earnings for service that were not covered by Social Security."

With regard to defined contribution plans like 457s, the Social Security operations manual goes on to state the following:

"Payments received from defined contribution plans (e.g., 401(k), 403(b), or 457 plans) based on non-covered employment are considered a pension subject to WEP regardless of the source of contributions (employer only, employee only, or a combination of both), if the plan is the primary retirement plan. If the plan is a supplemental plan, the payments are subject to WEP when the plan payments contain employer or both employer and employee contributions."

Best, Jerry