I've been asked to pay back $10,000+ to SSA in 30 days because I retired at the end of the school year at age 62 and began receiving benefits for the remaining 6 mos. They now say I shouldn't have received any payments because of the teaching salary I earned for the 1st half of the year. My position is that the money I earned in 2019 from teaching was pre-retirement money. I didn't earn ANY money once my SS benefits started. Am I wrong in my thinking? I have appealed their decision, but they've not been very transparent about where I stand in this process. I've been sent form SSA-131 to have my former employer complete. Any advice?

Hi. No, it doesn't sound like you're thinking is wrong. What it sounds like is that you were probably due all of the benefits you received based on the monthly earnings test, but Social Security doesn't know that yet. The monthly earnings test would have allowed you to be paid benefits for any month in 2019 in which you earned no more than $1470, assuming that 2019 was the first year that you claimed your benefits (https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/rule.html).

Here's the problem, though. Social Security has no way of knowing how much you earned in a given month or months. All Social Security receives from employers is a copy of your W-2 form. So, if you don't file a report of your monthly earnings with Social Security and if your calendar year earnings exceed Social Security's yearly earnings limit, Social Security assumes that you didn't have any months in which your earnings were below the monthly limit.

Form SSA-131 is probably only needed in your case if you received compensation from your employer in 2020 that exceeded the calendar year earning test limit for that year. If Social Security has requested the form, though, then you should get it completed and submit it as part of your appeal. In most cases, all that's required to straighten out supposed overpayments like yours is to file a report to Social Security of your monthly earnings for the year in question.

For the benefit of other readers who retire mid year and are paid Social Security benefits based on the monthly earnings test, be sure to contact Social Security at the end of your initial year of benefit entitlement to report your monthly earnings to Social Security.

Best, Jerry