if you are already drawing your Social Security, you get a hall pass today … watch for posts coming in two days as this is not applicable to you.
ANYONE who is not drawing Social Security please take a moment to review our annual reminder of your Social Security statement. We have some great new findings and the statement has been completely updated, finally!
In true “practice what you preach” fashion yesterday morning in less than 5 minutes time a quick review of the Social Security statement was completed. Being 100% certain the filing was made since it was done in-house … but not trusting that the mail could have possibly not been delivered, this annual review is worth every bit of the five minutes it takes!
Here is the link to the newly updated Social Security log in web page…. Please take 5 minutes out of your day to log in and confirm … most importantly … that your earnings have been recorded for at least years 2020 and prior!
Annual Reminder to Review Your Social Security Statement
With a cup of Java in hand and early morning peace and quiet, in less than five minutes time a quick review of the Social Security statement due to an inbound email reminder was completed.
This year’s review was happily surprised at a complete update, (finally) of the statement. The new statement has neat bar graphs cascading from left to right showing early retirement benefits all the way to the full age 70 late retirement benefits, actually have to compliment the Social Security Association for integrating some technology, well done guys!
This year’s login which had a silly username from last year’s loss of password required email confirmation of a passcode, so just a heads up to be prepared for that.
The most important reason to review your annual Social Security statement is to make sure your years Earnings Income have been credited to your account.
In my case not surprisingly year 2021 credits had not been added as of this date … as a reminder January 31st is the deadline for employers to send the W3’s for all employees to the Social Security Administration, which is why it was not a surprise that a mid to early February review garnered no credits as of yet. Prior year credits work confirmed and again most importantly this is what you are looking for to make sure your credits were added to your Social Security statement.
From the Social Security Website:
If the earnings missing from your Social Security record are for the current year or last year, you don’t need to worry. Because these earnings are recent, we may not have recorded them yet. They should appear on a later Statement.
However, earnings could be missing from your record for earlier years for one of the following reasons:
- Your employer reported your earnings using the wrong name or Social Security number.
- Your employer reported your earnings incorrectly.
- You got married or divorced and changed your name, but never reported the change to Social Security.
- You worked using a Social Security number that didn’t belong to you.
See something that doesn’t match with your records? If there’s a mismatch between your records and the earnings listed, contact us to request a correction.
The contact us link from the Social Security Administration is purposefully hot so feel free to click on that link for contact information should you find your earnings record missing data.
Fancy new features of the Social Security website:
Scrolling just marginally down on the splash page immediately gives you a hot link to your earnings records. Again no matter what your age if you are not taking Social Security and have earnings please confirm that those earnings are being credited.
Scrolling down even further there is a fancy new graph that can be downloaded separately from your statement showing your estimated earnings benefits, cool stuff!
Wanda Worker Sample Benefit Statement
Farther down once again on the splash page is a quick calculator for a spouse or former spouse benefit based on your Social Security estimate, again cool stuff!
A hand clap applaud for the Social Security Administration for finally adding some neat tech functionality that makes the statement so much easier to read and interactive, well done guys!
Yes we can all debate whether Social Security will be there or not, but no matter the end result it’s worth 5 minutes of your time to log in take a look at the new fancy statement and confirm your earnings credits are being added to your records!
By the way this complete post has been done with a new wireless mic that is working like a charm, hat tip to the 14 year old technology son! Can’t wait to do a video with it, constantly trying to improve!
Have a wonderful “Annual Social Security Earnings Credit Review Reminder” day!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
jkfinancialinc
street-cents
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July (YIKES GOING FAST) 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale
Hello and Welcome to our July 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!
If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!
Newbies –
We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets and current events!
Hope you enjoy!
July 2021 Video
YouTube
Financial Planning Tip(s)
IRS Refunds and Tax Return Processing Very Delayed
In this Break In Post, after having discussions with several of you, and then touching our CPA contacts we came to the conclusion that the IRS is delayed in processing returns and more importantly REFUNDS!!!
Before we could get the news to you, this Yahoo Finance Article nicely summarizes that the IRS is behind on a whopping 20% of returns or over 30 million !
With a September 1, 2021 IRS stimulus check lookback (those who did not get the last round of stimulus will be reviewed by the IRS to see if they qualify) the IRS has their hands very full….
All together…. PATIENCE! They will eventually get to us!
Fingers Crossed For a Hot (Large) COLA Increase
Catching wind through our contacts of a possible HOT (read Large!) COLA adjustment this year for Social Security and possibly those lucky ones that have a COLA adjuster on their Pension or other retirement plan we dug in here in this post and outlined the methodology used by the SSA. The line in the sand for adjustment is later in the year but as can be seen by the latest CPI-W running at 6.1%, with a little luck, we may have a very nice adjustment on our hands!
Capital Market Comments
Valuations are Getting Better but Expectations are WAY out of Line!
In this post and with the help of our Friends at JPMorgan we happily reviewed the far right hand smartly turning graph, that is headed in the correct direction for better valuations… YAY
A bit later in the month we ran across a wonderful but somewhat worrisome poll done by Natixis of over 8000 investors and their expected return over the next 10 years…. Way off base in our minds….
Likely to see this last poll make its way into the Newsletter as these numbers are likely so exaggerated, we want more air time!
Ok…that’s a wrap for the July review….
Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of August!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
jkfinancialinc
street-cents
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Posted in Audio, Clients/Clients Only, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Tax Related, Video
Tagged Cola, Forward PE, Inflation, IRS, IRS Delays, IRS Refunds, JPMorgan, Natixis, Natixis Investor Survey, Pension COLA, Social Security COLA