I am 70 still working and and applied for my SS benefits 3 months before turning 70. I plan to retire in 5 years. My question is when is the best time of the year for me to retire on my 75 March birthday, 6 months into the year or end of the year?? Also, being divorced I was eligible for spousal benefits . After the second year of receiving spousal benefits SSA informed me that I was overpaid and would have to pay them back! The benefit amount was practically cut in half!I appealed under “no fault of my own” since it was their computation that made the error! Do I have grounds for such appeal? It’s been two years since I appealed and issue has not been resolved!
Hi. As far as Social Security benefits are concerned, it really wouldn't make much if any difference what time of the year you retire. Since you're over full retirement age (FRA) you can draw all of your benefits no matter how much you earn, so that's not a concern. The only possible difference would be if your earnings in the year of your retirement would be high enough to increase your benefit rate.
Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of Social Security covered wage-indexed earnings, so additional years of earnings only increase a person's benefit rate if they're higher than one or more of the 35 years currently being used to calculate the person's benefit rate.
As far as the appeal of your overpayment, there's no way for me to know why you might have been overpaid. When you appeal an overpayment, though, your questioning the fact or amount of the overpayment. So, if it's determined that there was in fact an overpayment, an appeal wouldn't wipe out your liability for repayment even if you weren't at fault in causing the overpayment.
The issue of fault is only material when a person asks for waiver (i.e. forgiveness) of an overpayment. But, to have your overpayment waived, in addition to being without fault in causing the overpayment you'd need to either be financially unable to repay the overpayment or recovery of the overpayment would have to be considered against equity and good conscience according to Social Security's rules (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0202250150). If you think that you may qualify for waiver of your overpayment, you should probably contact Social Security to discuss your options.
Best, Jerry
