Your Social Security earnings record is crucial in determining your Social Security benefits. It is a guarantee that you will receive the retirement benefits to which you are entitled if your earnings record is accurate. It is essential to make the necessary corrections within the time frame outlined in Section 515.
The importance of maintaining accurate Social Security earnings records, the procedures and due dates for resolving the steps to fix social security record errors, and the employer’s responsibilities to report accurate earnings data are all covered in this article.
Pay attention to the earnings record.
Social Security statements have many flaws. When Valecka reviewed her statement the year before, she discovered that her 2014 earnings were undisclosed. She is still awaiting the correction of her earnings history. She looks over the Social Security statements each year. Confirm your income is shown on the statement because your Social Security retirement benefit is based on your highest 35 years of earnings each month. Your ten lowest-earning years will be unconsidered when calculating benefits if you worked 45 years.
Duration of Corrections
The SSA gives you a window of time to make corrections to your earnings record:
Standard Deadline:
Following the conclusion of the taxable year in which your wages are paid, you have three years, three months, and fifteen days to make any necessary corrections.
Verifying Records with the IRS: Comparing documents with IRS-filed tax returns.
Unreported Wages:
Wages that an employer reports but are not recorded by the Social Security Administration.
Speak With Your Employer
Usually, your employer reports your income to the Social Security Administration and withholds your Social Security benefits. If something went wrong along the way, it most likely happened during the correspondence between the SSA and your employer. Verify that your name, address, and Social Security number match those on file with your employer—possibly even more crucially—since this is a frequent cause of inaccuracies in common mistakes in social security records.
To get the Recordings
You should get in touch with the SSA right away if you discover that earnings are missing. Giving the SSA your W2, tax return, or pay stubs from the missing period is the way to fix the error. If you lack these required documents for social security record updates, you should ascertain:
Name
Social Security number of the employer;
dates of employment;
earnings;
and name
number you used while working.
The SSA will update your record after attempting to verify the earnings once you have gathered the necessary information.
