I've been divorced for over 20 years and recently started getting half my exes SS benefits. My question is, besides your salary earnings, if you earn money on your stocks, dividends or other ways, isn't that considered earnings as well and therefore should be taxed or am I missing something? Problem is I've never been mathematically inclined and I also have a strong feeling that my ex kind of, lied or left out some info on his taxes and his returns.
It gets more complicated but I'm going to assume you get the idea.
Personally I don't care about him, but I know he's been hiding things and that affects me!!!
I don't have enough for an attorney, but I see fraud in big red letters!

I know there's a paper trail, problem has always been that he comes from lots of money while I'm living on disability and less than you can imagine...sure I'm angry but more so, I want what's fair..

Hi. Social Security taxes are only collected on earned income, which is basically limited to gross wages and net earnings from self-employment. Income derived from investments like stock dividends and capital gains are taxed as income, but they are not subject to Social Security taxes and therefore aren't included when calculating a person's benefit rate.

If you have reason to believe that your ex-spouse is cheating on his taxes, you could report him to the IRS. The instructions for that can be found on IRS's website: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/how-do-you-report-suspected-tax-fraud-ac....

Best, Jerry