Hello Larry,
I have been dancing between the IRS and the Social Security Administration going on two years now with no answers. Maybe you can shed some light on things for me...things I have zero knowledge of.

My husband is retired. Long story short, in trying to learn how the system works...i went to ssa.gov and opened an account for him. There are three years whereby a "zero" is placed in the column instead of my husbands earnings. We filed self employed and paid taxes on our income. Because of this situation, my husband is 4 credits shy of being able to qualify for medicare or Social Security. Yes...he could find a job to earn the 4 credits however, he shouldn't have to. These particular years, he made good money and from what I understand...would effect his Social Security benefits. My last communication with Social Security was..."we don't know whose income this is." I don't know how long I sat with my jaw on the floor. I sent the Social Security Administration IRS Account Transcripts that clearly shows my husbands name and Social Security number so this, "we don't know whose income it is", is absurd. Yes, we filed joint however, I was a mother raising our children and clearly not employed.

When we are young, we don't have a care in the world about Social Security because well, it doesn't matter...it's too far off. Nothing like learning how very ignorant we are about the system and how very broken it seems to be. It has been a horrible experience for me not being able to get a straight answer however, I am still trying. I am a moron and was doing some deep cleaning two years ago and shredded my old tax documents because I naively thought I would never need them. How very wrong I was. I am older and did not have nor think of having a digital copy. Who would think you would ever need a tax return from 2006? What a lesson for me. The burden of proof is on me and well, all I have is the Account Transcript from the IRS. I know that I cannot be alone however, I don't know what to do or if I can do anything at all!
I would greatly appreciate your input here. What am I missing? What might I do?

Thank you,
Tracey

Hi Tracey. Self-employment earnings are credited to whomever's Social Security number (SSN) is listed on Schedule SE of the person's tax return. If your husband's Social Security record is showing zeroes for years in which he was self-employed, then the most likely explanation is that either a) no Schedule SE was filed with his tax return, in which case no self-employment taxes were paid that year, or b) the two of you filed a joint tax return and your SSN was listed on Schedule SE instead of your husband's SSN.

Even if you file a tax return and pay income taxes, you don't receive Social Security credits for self-employment income unless you file a Schedule SE and pay the requisite self-employment taxes. If no self-employment taxes were paid in the years in question and if those years were prior to 2019, then there is likely nothing you can do to rectify the problem. But, if the years in question were after 2018, then you could potentially file an amended tax return to report the self-employment earnings and pay the appropriate self-employment taxes.

If on the other hand your husband's self-employment earnings were erroneously credited to your Social Security earnings history because your SSN was listed on Schedule SE of your joint tax returns in the years in question, then those earnings could be moved from your Social Security earnings record to your husband's earnings record. To accomplish that you would need to contact Social Security, and they would need both you and your husband to sign statements attesting that the self-employment earnings in question belong to your husband, and were mistakenly reported under your SSN (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0301802344).

Best, Jerry