In 2011 my wife, who has been on SS disability for many years and is now on retirement, received a rather large single payment check from Social Security. The best she could find out from them, as there was little documentation with the check, was that it was to correct long time underpayments which were discovered. When she called, she was told that the check was correct and it was hers. She could not get any information on what periods it covered.
In doing our 2011 taxes (with Turbotax), she finds the form wanting her to allocate the payment to what years were covered and how much for each year, I assume for income averaging. I believe the averaging only goes back to 2008. This check may represent a total of small amounts going back to the 1990s or even earlier, as her disability was on and off several times. How do we handle this?