"“Hopefully you're with us for quite a bit longer and you make it to 70 and beyond, and your original strategy might still pretty much be intact,” he said. “I would assign a high importance level to your wife retaining as large a Social Security benefit as possible for longevity purposes, living well into her 90s. And that is achieved by your benefit being as large as possible.”"
"“If you were to die before your full retirement age because you hadn't claimed, there's no penalty for that,” Stein said. “She won't be stuck with a less than your [primary insurance amount]. That widow's limit you're talking about only applies if you claim before your full retirement age and then pass away later, and she kind of inherits your survivor benefit, which was reduced by early claiming.”"
"The caller's revised theory: have the wife apply now on her own record, and if he passes in the next few years, have her wait until he would have been 70 to claim a survivor benefit."
A retiree faced a revised Social Security strategy after a diagnosis of liver cancer. The couple had planned for the wife to claim at 67 and the husband to delay until 70. They held $600,000 in a brokerage account, $800,000 in traditional IRAs, and $800,000 in Roth IRAs. The revised approach considered having the wife claim on her own record now, then waiting until the husband would have reached 70 to claim a survivor benefit if he died in the coming years. Guidance emphasized keeping the wife’s Social Security benefit as large as possible for longevity. Delaying benefits to age 70, or as long as the husband lives, was presented as the way to maximize that outcome. No penalty applies if death occurs before full retirement age when benefits were not claimed early.
Read at 24/7 Wall St.
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]