Hello, i did started collecting early SS in 2014, in 2017, in 2018 my wife start collecting early spousal benefits, they calculated her benefit from my full benefit, she reported retirement from another country and they made deduction from her account. I did reported my retirement from Poland at this time but they said is everything OK because my 30 years of employment in USA. Now they recalculated everything and reducing benefits for my wife and me and asking for return of overpayment for last four years. can they do that?

Hi. Well, Social Security can ask for people to return an overpayment of benefits, but I'm not sure from your description whether or not your overpayment is correct. If Social Security reduced your wife's spousal benefit rate because she's receiving a pension from her work in another country, then that would be wrong. Social Security's Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision can cause a person's spousal or survivor benefits to be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of a government pension they receive that's based on their earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, but only if the government agency for which they worked was in the United States. Foreign pensions are specifically excluded from the definition of a government pension for purposes of the GPO provision (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0202608400).

Therefore, if the reason for the alleged overpayment is because your wife is receiving a pension based on her work in a foreign country, then that determination is incorrect. However, if you're receiving a pension based on your earnings that weren't subject to U.S. Social Security taxes, then that pension could cause your benefit rate to be reduced due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). That's true even if it's based on your work in a foreign country. And, if WEP reduces your benefit rate then it would also reduce the spousal benefit rate payable to your wife.

If you had at least 30 years of earnings in the U.S. that were subject to Social Security taxes then you may be exempt from any WEP based reduction in your benefit rate, but only if you had at least 30 years of substantial earnings as that term is defined in the WEP regulations. The yearly amount of earnings needed to meet the definition of 'substantial earnings' is listed on page 2 of the following WEP pamphlet: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf.

Obviously, I don't have access to all of the facts involved in your and your wife's case, but if you believe that the overpayment that you were notified of is incorrect the you can appeal Social Security's determination. You and/or your wife can do so by completing and submitting a form SSA-561 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-561.pdf). The overpayment notice that you and/or your wife received should contain more specific information on what to do if you or she disagrees with Social Security's determination.

Best, Jerry