Dear Liz:<\/b> My mother\u2019s only income was Social Security. Her accountant told her many years prior to her passing that she didn\u2019t need to file a tax return. <\/p>\n
I was the executor of her trust and told the attorney I hired to help settle the estate that I would file her final tax return. I never did. That was 10 years ago. <\/p>\n
Now I feel that I should have filed it back then and am wondering if I should do it now or forget about it.<\/p>\n
Answer:<\/b> If you still have access to her paperwork, you can review her bank statements to see if there is any indication her income climbed enough in her last years to require filing an income tax return. If so, you can consult a tax pro about next steps.<\/p>\n
But you\u2019re probably fine, says estate planning attorney Jennifer Sawday in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
If your mother was under the threshold for filing an income tax return, there would have been no reason to file a final return after she died, Sawday says.<\/p>\n
Dear Liz<\/b>: My sister and brother-in-law were both 68 when she passed away last December. She had been on Social Security disability since her mid 50s until it was converted to retirement in her 60s. He is the higher wage earner and still working. Can he file for survivor benefits now, and then file for his own retirement benefits after he stops working when he turns 70?<\/p>\n
Answer<\/b>: Yes. Since your brother-in-law has passed his full retirement age of 67, he won\u2019t face the earnings test that would otherwise reduce any Social Security benefits he receives. His applying for a survivor\u2019s benefit now won\u2019t preclude him from applying for his own benefit later. His own benefit can continue to grow until it\u2019s maxed out at age 70.<\/p>\n
Note that survivor benefits have different rules than spousal benefits, which are based on the earnings record of someone who is still alive. When applying for a spousal benefit, you\u2019re also considered to be applying for your own, and you\u2019ll get the larger of the two. There\u2019s no switching later.<\/p>\n
Liz Weston, Certified Financial Planner, is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet.<\/a> <\/a>Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the \u201cContact\u201d form at asklizweston.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Liz: My mother\u2019s only income was Social Security. Her accountant told her many years prior to her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-225391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114769719711585647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}