The new budget agreement recently passed by the House of Representatives will remove the popular file and suspend strategy used by married couples to increase Social Security payouts. File and suspend allowed one spouse to claim social security benefits while the other spouse, usually the worker with the greater contribution to SSI, would defer taking their benefits in order to take the payout bump granted for each year of deferment. However, new rules now call for “deemed filing” which negates the deferment advantage by making filing for either retirement or spousal benefits be considered as filing both which prevents the delayed filing credit from kicking in. This major change has not yet entered the books but is expected to take effect in 2016.
See Jamie Hopkins, New Budget Deal Is Cutting Your Social Security Benefits And It’s A Good Thing, Forbes, October 29, 2015.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse for bringing this article to my attention.
