Benefits Planner: Retirement | Reporting Your Wages (2024)

FAQs

Benefits Planner: Retirement | Reporting Your Wages? ›

When you work as an employee, your wages are generally covered by Social Security and Medicare. Your employer gives Social Security a copy of your W-2 form to report your earnings when they give you a copy of the form for filing your income tax return. We use these employer reports to record earnings.

Earned income also includes net earnings from self-employment. Earned income does not include amounts such as pensions and annuities, welfare benefits, unemployment compensation, worker's compensation benefits, or social security benefits.

If you will reach full retirement age in 2024, the limit on your earnings for the months before full retirement age is $59,520. Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, there is no limit on how much you can earn and still receive your benefits.

The point is that if you earned $120,000 per year for the past 35 years, thanks to the annual maximum taxable wage limits, the maximum Social Security benefit you could get at full retirement age is $2,687.

Benefits are generally included in the employee's wage for tax purposes, except those benefits that qualify for exclusion.

If you receive retirement benefits in the form of pension or annuity payments from a qualified employer retirement plan, all or some portion of the amounts you receive may be taxable unless the payment is a qualified distribution from a designated Roth account.

Regardless of the reasons you might have, the good news is that once you reach full retirement age, you'll no longer suffer any penalties for working. You'll be entitled to your full monthly Social Security benefit regardless of how many hours you work.

You can get Social Security retirement benefits and work at the same time. However, if you are younger than full retirement age and make more than the yearly earnings limit, we will reduce your benefits. Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, we will not reduce your benefits no matter how much you earn.

On the downside, age 62 recipients could see their monthly benefit permanently reduced by up to 30%, and they may be exposed to the retirement earnings test, which allows the SSA to withhold some or all of their payout. Age 67: The lure of an age 67 claim is not having to worry about benefit reductions.

Many retirees fall far short of that amount, but their savings may be supplemented with other forms of income. According to data from the BLS, average 2022 incomes after taxes were as follows for older households: 65-74 years: $63,187 per year or $5,266 per month. 75 and older: $47,928 per year or $3,994 per month.

Is $1500 a month enough to retire on? ›

While $1,500 might not be enough for non-housing retirement expenses for many people, it doesn't mean it's impossible to stick to this or other amounts, such as if you're already retired and don't have the ability to increase your budget.

Social Security tax FAQs

Social Security income can be taxable no matter how old you are. It all depends on whether your total combined income exceeds a certain level set for your filing status. You may have heard that Social Security income is not taxed after age 70; this is false.

The maximum Social Security check

Your maximum benefit if you file at full retirement age – between 66 and 67 – is $3,822 per month. Your maximum benefit if you file at age 70 – the age when extra benefits stop accruing – is $4,873 per month.

People who earn higher salaries get bigger Social Security benefits than those who earn less. But there's a limit to just how big benefits can grow. Even if you earned a million dollars throughout your career, your benefit would max out at $4,873.

Social Security bases your retirement benefits on your lifetime earnings. We adjust or “index” your actual earnings to account for changes in average wages since the year the earnings were received. Then we calculate your average indexed monthly earnings from your highest 35 years of earnings.

The amounts deferred under your 401(k) plan are reported on your Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Although elective deferrals are not treated as current income for federal income tax purposes, they are included as wages subject to Social Security (FICA), Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes (FUTA).

Contributions made by the employer to an employee retirement plan (whether the plan provides for elective deferrals or not) are not included in employee income. However, any additional contributions made by the employees are included in income, unless they are made under elective deferral provisions.

Pension payments, annuities, and the interest or dividends from your savings and investments are not earnings for Social Security purposes. You may need to pay income tax, but you do not pay Social Security taxes.

Social Security wages are not the same as gross income. While the amount of Social Security wages and gross income are often** identical, they just as easily may not be. Gross income is the total of all compensation from which the amount of taxes and other withholdings are calculated.