Howard, Your treatise on Social Security was great! Thank you. The maximum wages that are taxed for social security are something like $85k. If you earn $100k for a few years, is that counted into the total wages, or do they cap it at $85k each year for the sake of the calculation. Thank you!
Luvglass said
04:59 PM Oct 5, 2007
You earn maximum benefits from the capped contribution. I don't believe they track additional earnings.
Fred
Howard said
01:01 PM Oct 8, 2007
Hi mcphelps7,
Just in case folks don't know what "treatise" you are talking about, here is the link to our "Social Security Overview" page.
Fred is correct. You do not get to count the earnings over the maximum taxable amount in each year.
Here is a link to "Your Retirement Benefit: How It Is Figured". It shows maximum earnings amounts from 1951 through 2006:
Just in case folks don't know what "treatise" you are talking about, here is the link to our "Social Security Overview" page.
Fred is correct. You do not get to count the earnings over the maximum taxable amount in each year.
Here is a link to "Your Retirement Benefit: How It Is Figured". It shows maximum earnings amounts from 1951 through 2006:
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10070.html
The amount for 2007 is $97,500.
So you only get to count earnings up to those amounts in each of those years according to that link.
Now you didn't really think the government was going to let you count earnings that they didn't tax for social security did you?
Seriously, that was a great question. I assumed you could not count the earnings over and above the maximums, but it wasn't that easy to confirm it.