Mark Singer: Some mistakes as in most aspects of life, we can
recover from. But as you enter into retirement, a bad decision
about Social Security, could potentially devastate this next
chapter in life for you. And in this video, I want to identify
seven of those mistakes that could devastate your retirement
and help you to avoid them. But before we get there, subscribe
to my channel, I have over 30 years in this business, and I
want to share with you what I know, the conversations I have
with my clients so that you don't step on those landmines.
So I want to get right into it. Because they, there are seven
mistakes that you can make with regards to social security, that
can devastate you, some may be right in front of you, when you
just don't know them. Some may be a little bit more obscure. So
let's start with number one. So the first one is, it may be a
little counterintuitive for you, you do not want to go to Social
Security offices or speak to the personnel if you're interested
in getting advanced planning strategies. As I mentioned, this
is a bit counterintuitive, why wouldn't we go to the people who
are in charge of this, because the reality is, from their
perspective, they don't want to be liable, or put themselves in
a position where you make a bad mistake based on their
counseling. So they pretty much have to stick with just the
numbers. They can't do the advanced strategies, they can't
look forward, that can't tell you what if a or what if B or if
you took this and your wife or husband took that they're not in
that business, you can call them up, get the forms, most of it is
done online. But the majority of the numbers that you're going to
be seeing are only those numbers that are here and now and
present, do not rely upon any advanced planning strategies.
I've seen it too many times, where somebody has ventured from
Social Security Administration to give some advanced planning
strategies that were not accurate. Go to your advisor, or
have an advisor who's well versed in this, to crunch these
numbers properly for you. So you don't make a mistake that could
devastate your income later on. The second mistake is something
you can easily cover. And that is check your earnings record.
Did you know that since 2012, there's about $1.2 trillion of
unmatched income through social security that they weren't able
to match up with the proper recipient. A lot of this is just
due to the fact that maybe there's a simple number that's
missing, whether it was your social security number or an
employer mismatched and just had one number off, and it may end
up showing on your record as no income. Therefore Social
Security put in a big fat zero for you, which will impact the
amount of income you have looking forward. So if you go to
the Social Security Administration website, they
will show you exactly the instructions, you need to check
your earnings history. Do this every couple of years as you get
closer to your retirement to make sure that there's no zeros
that shouldn't be there. The third mistake and this is where
I get into, I think our industry's done a lousy job of
educating you is really right in front of you. It's the fact that
many of you will have your Social Security benefits taxed.
And if you don't account for this, it may truly devastate
your planning and your ability to pursue your retirement goals
because your cash flow gets impacted. So let's take a look
at some of the details. I'll go to my screen. So the most
important thing to understand is what we call a provisional
income, which is your adjusted gross income plus one half of
your Social Security benefit, plus any tax exempt interest
typically municipal bond income. So if you are married filing
jointly, and for many of you, your provisional income will be
over $44,000 that upwards of 85% of your Social Security benefit
will be subject to tax. If you're single, that number is
$34,000. And upwards of 85% of your benefit will be taxed.
Here's another example of another mistake in terms of
taxation that could really devastate you, particularly if
you take your Social Security benefits before your full
retirement age. And you're still working. If you apply for Social
Security before full retirement age, and you work $1 and
benefits will be withheld for every $2 you earned over
$19,560. In 2022, this can be a big mistake, I've had a couple
of clients who have gone down this road before talking with
me, and found out they were going to get a lot in less in
their pockets than they thought. So be very careful here. So if
you have questions about your Social Security, I'm going to
get to the rest of the points in my latest book, don't outlive
your money in retirement. If you go to my banner, you'll find
that we have available to you a free chapter. It's the second
chapter in my book, and it's devoted exclusively to Social
Security, we'll get to you exactly what you need to know.
So that you can make the decisions that are good for you
and help you to maximize the income for your household that
you deserve. Mistake number four, not understanding spousal
or survivor benefits. This is really crucial. Now on the
spousal benefit you can collect off of your spouse's work
record, and the optimal time is to collect it when you've
reached full retirement age. Now, there is on your own work
record the ability to delay your benefit until you're age 70. But
for your spousal benefit, you don't get any benefit for
waiting the extra three or four years, you max out on the
spousal benefit at your full retirement age.
So if you wait until age 70, to collect, there's no extra
benefit. As a matter of fact, you may lose out on that income
you should have been getting by not having claimed it at your
full retirement age. If you're widowed and you're looking for
the survivor benefit, your benefit is going to be kept. And
again, you don't want to wait too late to get that income,
because you may give up on one, two or three years of income you
should have had that may have impacted your retirement. And
one strategy that is still out there. That was tremendous, but
for the most part it was taken away was what was called the
restricted application. For those who are widowed, you can
choose the restricted application as early as age 60.
And defer your own work record, which is one of the 567
different strategies that are out there. Again, getting back
to the fact that the social security administration really
isn't going to be able to help you navigate through this. This
is where particularly, you want to talk to somebody that they
have an understanding of the complexities of each of the
strategies. The fifth mistake is avoid overpayments. Now, the
worst thing that you want to have happen, believe me is if
you get too much money, which may seem to be a good thing,
Social Security Administration is going to catch up and is
going to find it the problem is getting the money back to them
in a timely and efficient basis. So you don't get penalized, and
the paperwork can be daunting. So if you do get overpayments,
make sure you raise your hand immediately to get it back to
them. One of the big reasons that this happens is when you do
choose to collect your Social Security before your full
retirement age, and you guesstimate how much you'll earn
and Social Security doesn't take back enough for the amount of
money that you're earning. That's the number one reason why
there are overpayments because you made an assumption that was
in error telling the Social Security Administration you're
going to make the wrong amount of money and they ended up
paying you too much. You
don't want to go down this road. So remember, you can be audited,
you probably will be they will find it. You're gonna have to
Get it back to them. Find out early, talk to them early,
remedy the situation as early as you can. The sixth mistake that
can be devastating to your retirement is taking your Social
Security at age 62, almost half of all people who are eligible
to take it at 62 do so. And for many, it's a big mistake, you
can go to our vault of videos that are on the YouTube channel
here to see more about it and in greater depth. For some, it may
be okay. But for most, it is not not only for them, but for their
spouse, as well. So be very, very careful, make sure that you
use the calculators This is why we have over we have seven
calculators in in our planning for our clients, making sure we
understand all the iterations, all the possible options, which
of the 567 different strategies you should be using to make sure
that you maximize your income from Social Security for your
household. Finally, this may seem pretty easy, but many
people don't do it. And it's actually the process of
planning. Now you can go on to the Social Security website.
They have calculators there, and you can figure out at a very
elementary level, which strategy is best for you. But if you
really want to dig deeper, if you really want to get an
advanced strategy that is right for you. You really need to
incorporate all of your assets, how old you are, what kind of
health situation you're in, you're required minimum
distributions, your cash flow needs, taxes, etc. All of this
really needs to be accounted for well in in advance of and more
than just the number that you'll get from a straight Social
Security calculator. If you go and go about and put together
your if I will call it your yellow brick road, your ability
to put your retirement roadmap together, then you will find the
number that is good for you and not give up on any income that
could potentially devastate your retirement.