How to enter special Social Security benefits

The Social Security section of Income Lab covers situations where clients are alive and are receiving or will receive Social Security under their own benefits (or a spousal benefit based on the spouse's benefits), using standard calculations and the plan's assumed inflation rate.

For any special situations or planning needs, you may need to enter Social Security benefits differently. Some situations that may require separate entry of Social Security benefits in a plan include:

• Benefits received under the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)
• Benefits that will be reduced due to high earned income (and then increase once that earned income goes away)
• A surviving spouse is already receiving survivor benefits
• A plan with a specified date of death and where the surviving spouse will take survivor benefits before age 62 (as early as age 60)
• Spousal benefits received before normal retirement age by a spouse who is caring for a qualifying child (in which case benefit reductions before normal retirement age do not apply)
• Benefits that do not adjust with the plan's assumed average inflation rate
• Benefits that change at some point in the plan, such as planning for a reduction in benefits due to exhaustion of the Social Security trust fund

To plan for these situations, please go to the Social Security tab in the 'Income' section of the plan, or select a Social Security item in Life Hub. Then select 'No' next to 'Include Social Security benefits' for the client who has a special situation.
 

This will turn off automatic calculations of Social Security for this client. Now enter the Social Security income as an item under "Other Income" with the correct benefit amount and "Social Security" chosen as the Tax Treatment.

In joint plans, you will also want to specify the correct survivor benefit amounts using the "Amount after death of X" fields. You can access these fields by clicking the gear icon to the right of the 'other income' item.