Mar 24, 2016 By Harry Funk 3 min read

Say you’re about to turn 68 and want to start collecting your Social Security benefits after deferring them for two years.

Say that according to government records, you already started collecting at age 66. And say that’s around the time you provided your grandson who was starting college with what turned out to be too much information, and it turned out he was pocketing your checks.

Elaine Cole, public affairs specialist with the Social Security Administration, spoke about such a situation as a cautionary tale.

“Protect your identity,” she advised during a Social Security seminar presented by Nicole Mullinix and Mindy Zatta of Southpointe-based Mosaic Wealth Consulting. “It’s not necessarily the person who does not know you. It’s the person who knows you.”

The Social Security Administration’s online feature My Social Security allows for the creation of user profiles. In turn, those can be checked for accuracy of information, not only for potential fraud, but also if employers are reporting earnings properly.

”You can go in and see that benefit statement that you used to have in the mail three months before your birthday,” Cole said about the printed version. “Over the past three or four years, it hasn’t been consistently mailed. Why? That was one of the budget cuts.”

For example, those under age 60 now receive mailed statements only once every five years.

During her presentation, Cole addressed other topics, including the effects of Social Security-related provisions in the federal Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.

“This particular change is going to continue to keep the Social Security trust funds solvent,” she said.

An aim of the legislation was to eliminate conditions “that allowed couples with financial means to obtain additional or enhanced benefits that Congress did not intend,” according to the Social Security Administration Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs.

One such “aggressive claiming loophole” enabled a worker to file for benefits but then suspend payments while still allowing a benefit to be paid to the spouse, even though the worker was not retired and was not collecting benefits.

Suspending payments, which can be done from full retirement age through 70, results in increased benefits when the worker does start collecting. By contrast, those who opt for early retirement received lower benefits than would be the case at full age, which eventually will be 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

To help clients navigate the complexities of Social Security, this is the third year that Mullinix and Zatta have hosted the seminar.

“We offer comprehensive financial planning, and in areas where we are not experts or specialists, we have educational forums. We try to be as resourceful as possible in areas that we don’t offer direct solutions for,” Mullinix said during this year’s seminar, which was held at Bella Sera in Cecil Township.

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