Time is running out for the File & Suspend Social Security Strategy. Clients turning 66 or older by April 29th can still file and suspend. They must file and request voluntary suspension on or before April 29th. If the request is made before the April 29th deadline, eligible family members such as the client’s spouse can still receive benefits on the client’s record. After April 29th, any suspension of benefits will also suspend benefits for anyone receiving benefits on the client’s record (excluding divorced souses.)
Below in an excerpt from a previous post Social Security Game Changer – Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 with pertinent information regarding the File and Suspend strategy deadline.
One important caveat here is that anyone who starts a File and Suspend strategy before April 30, 2016 will be grandfathered into the strategy, or in other words, even though the wage earner’s benefits have been suspended, anyone else currently receiving benefits based on the wage earner’s benefits will not have their benefits suspended on May 1, 2016 when this part of the law goes into effect. In order to start this strategy, the wage earner who will File and Suspend needs to be their Full Retirement Age, which for those who can take advantage of this strategy is age 66. So to start this strategy the wage earner needs to have been born on or before April 30, 1950 (the Social Security Administration deems everyone to have been born the day before their birthday). This will make spousal benefits available to the wage earner’s spouse at any time after the File and Suspend is started. In addition, those who are able to start a File and Suspend strategy before April 30, 2016, will also be able to retroactively claim suspended benefits receiving a lump-sum for benefit payments that were suspended and restart benefits at the level they were being paid at when they were suspended.
Read the full post: Social Security Game Changer – Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.
