My wife receives a small Canada pension plan payment. She has no W-2 earnings after living in the USA for over 25 years.
I just applied for Social Security and she applied for her spousal benefit at her full retirement age. Will her spousal benefit be affected by her Canada pension plan payment. (Does the windfall elimination provisions apply).
I am not collecting any CPP payments. Thank you
Hi,
No, your wife's spousal benefits won't be affected by her Canadian pension. The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) only applies to Social Security retirement or disability benefits, not auxiliary (e.g. spousal) or survivor benefits. The Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf) does apply to auxiliary and survivor benefits, but foreign pensions are excluded from counting as a government pension for purposes of GPO.
Best, Jerry