Newbie - SS repayment money

[romy]

Hi everyone, so thrilled to have found you!!! I applied for early retirement at earlier this year because my boss cut my hours by 80 percent. I am now self-employed and doing good enough to get off social security and just work. When calling the soc. sec. office they said I had to pay all monies back that I received this year thus far (~9k) and I told them I don't have it but if they'd give me a year I will pay it off and the answer was no. I also found out they will hold all the monies that I will owe next year and that's fine by me as long as I can work full-time.

How does that work? I will give them an estimate of what I will make in 2014 and they'll keep the monies and then the same for 2015. I would expect then I get no money until I turn 66 years old. Is that correct?

Hope I was clear. THANKS TO ALL>

 

[romy]

I made a mistake

I made a mistake by joining this forum and wanted to say I'm sorry. I took early retirement with social security out of need and your forum is not where I belong. SORRY, The best to everyone, Romy

 

[Brett_Cameron]

Don't leave! All are welcome here. Your story and your experience with SS intrigues me.

 

[REWahoo]

Wait, don't go. If you retired early, no matter what the reason, you should hang around.

Your question needs to be answered but I don't have the SS expertise to respond. I'm sure someone who does will reply to your question later today.

 

[Brett_Cameron]

There are a couple of ways your situation could be treated by the SS.

The first that they described to you involves a Withdrawal of Application. This requires you pay back all the money you received. This can only happen within 12 months of your initial start of benefits. This is the one you said you are unable to do.

The second is they can withhold your benefit if your earnings exceed the earnings allowance for those under full retirement age. This does not involve a Withdrawal of Application and does not require money to be paid back. This can go along as long as you have earnings exceeding the limit or until you reach full retirement age. The SS will keep track of the money not paid and when you reach full retirement age, they will recalculate your benefit amount and start paying you that larger benefit amount.

See here for more information: SSA Handbook, Chapter 18

This contains the earning limits; http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/EN-05-10077.pdf


This is the section that discusses reduction or nonpayment of benefits.

 

[romy]

Thank you.

Thanks for the information and okay I'll stay - I need to learn. This is precisely the information I was looking for and now I'll do more homework and report back on what I find. THANKS SO MUCH.

 

[pb4uski]

If you can afford to, you may be best off to borrow money (from a bank, friends, or family), use the proceeds to repay SS (essentially withdrawing your application) and then pay off the loan. Same idea you had but you need to find someone to float you the loan.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for the information and okay I'll stay - I need to learn. This is precisely the information I was looking for and now I'll do more homework and report back on what I find. THANKS SO MUCH.

Thank you for staying , and please do report back, as plenty of folks here can learn from your experience and will be grateful for reading about it.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Roomy, the good thing about Social Security is that eventually you will receive the money you did not receive earlier, in the form of a higher benefit. And if you have an actual SS office near you, it is probably staffed with knowledgeable people as the one near us is.

And please stay! We love talking about Social Security here . And yay that you were hired so no longer need to be taking SS now.