Pottstown, PA asked in Tax Law and Social Security for Pennsylvania

Q: Unrecorded income

Hello,

Income I made from 1992 to 1994 was not recorded even if I filed my taxes for those years. I contacted my ex-employer and they gave me a confirm letter with my salaries for the years I worked, but the letter is not considered as proof by the social security office. I just dont know what to do because it was a long time ago. Who fault was it that my income was not recorded. Was it the IRS? I did received W2's and filed my tax for those 3 years, otherwise the IRS wouldn't have left me alone. Please help. Thanks for your time

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2 Lawyer Answers

A: Usually, the IRS reports wages to Social Security, but sometimes there are discrepancies. You definitely should correct your earnings record with Social Security. If all of your earnings are not shown on your earnings record, this could mean lower Social Security benefits for you or your family.

First, obtain your earnings record from Social Security using your My Social Security account. If those 1992 - 1994 earnings are not posted on your earnings record, contact Social Security to correct your earnings record and provide proof that you earned those wages. Documents to prove to Social Security you earned those wages include tax return, W-2s, a wage stub or pay slip. (I would provide copies of this proof rather than sending in originals) If you provide sufficient identifying information concerning your identity, your former employer and the years of earnings in question, you may not have to submit for SSA-7008, but just in case, here is the form https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7008.pdf.

A: If you have copies of your tax returns for those years, I would call the social security administration to see if they could update their records accordingly. If they cannot do it, then this gets to be a harder task. You could contact the IRS (good luck with that these days with their limited staff and the pandemic) and see if they do have a record of these tax return years being filed. If not you could send them copies of the filed returns to have them process them. The one risk you have is that if they never did in fact receive them, they will process them as being filed now. That could result in penalty and interest if there was a balance due on either of the returns. If that is the case you could have a huge amount due since the returns are so old. So be careful here. In any event, you should retain a tax attorney to review your situation before proceeding.

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