A financial columist (Brurns) got letters from new Medicare recipients many were being charged the medicare monthly surcharge which is $161 in 2007 (increases to $384 by 2009) automatically subtracted from your social security check. Apparently the SSA defaults your income at age 63 to determine your medicare premium, when you may or may not have retired yet.
I'm not sure what you are whining about.
They use your income on the last federal income tax return available from the IRS. You can supply a later one if it is to your advantage.
Only singles with modified adjusted gross income exceeding $200,000 or marrieds with modified adjusted gross incomes exceeding $400,000 on that federal income tax return will pay $161. This will be only a few percent of people applying for Medicare Part B, and the extra cost would represent less than about 0.4% of annual income.
Certain life events streamline the correction process. If you want to appeal based on something else, the form is about a half page long. You might call that a lot of paperwork, but I wouldn't.
Dave
I didn't hear whining, what I heard was that my old people need to proactively supply numbers to the SSA each year. One more thing to add to the list of actions I visit each year. For many of these people who have no knowledgable planner, they may miss this altogether, and pay more than they need to. (Like the 'donate some of your IRA RMD in
06/07', which would have gone overlooked for those who would benefit) JOE
Do they have to do this every year or only when first enrolling in part B? Thumper
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