i will be turning 70 nov 30 2022..my husband and i still own businesses..will this hurt my amount that i get or will i be pentlized for still receiving income

Hi. No. The fact that you own a business certainly won't have any adverse effect on your ability to collect benefits, nor will it reduce your benefit rate. There's no limit on the amount of earnings or income that a person can have and still be able to collect all of their benefits once they reach full retirement age (FRA).

The only adverse effect that owning a business might have is with regard to taxation of your benefits. A portion of a person's Social Security benefits can be subject to income taxes depending on the amount of their income. So, receiving income from your business could potentially cause you to owe more income taxes. For more details about taxation of benefits, refer to the following Social Security website: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/taxes.html.

Conversely, if you operate a business and if you have a net profit, those earnings could potentially cause your Social Security retirement benefit rate to increase. 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 can increase a person's benefit rate if they're higher than one or more of the 35 years currently being used to calculate their benefit rate.

Best, Jerry