Experienced Social Security Lawyers Can Help with the Entire Process

America’s largest retirement asset is social security. The system, however, is very complex and can be rather hard to understand. Without sufficient knowledge of how it works, you could lose a lot of money. According to Laurence Kotlikoff, author of a book about social security, “The benefits are there for the taking. You paid for them. And with a little effort, you can dramatically increase what you get.” To make sure of this, you can enlist the services of experienced social security lawyers like those from Jan Dils, Attorneys-at-Law to help you through the process.

Simply taking the benefits as they come without really thinking about it could cost you much. There are a lot of benefits available to a person, and there are many ways to receive these benefits. A common mistake that people make is taking benefits too soon because they’re worried that they will expire before they can get the opportunity to collect.  The problem is that by doing so, they may get reduced auxiliary benefits or lose them completely.

From the time they stop working, retirees rely on social security retirement benefits for their source of income. Full retirement benefits are available at full retirement age, which is anywhere from 65 to 67. Although, a person can apply for benefits as early as age 62, he will receive 25 percent less than the full benefit. On the other hand, if the person waits until age 70, the benefits will be greater than the full benefit.

One thing that some retirees do is to receive the early retirement benefits then repay the amount received later on. This is so that they can then reapply for a larger monthly benefit with a zero-interest loan from the government. This strategy is handy because a person can gain from the early benefit then claim a tax refund upon repayment. This is only one of a number of strategies that can be used to boost social security benefits.

Those who are planning for their retirement should be ready to apply for social security. To that end, they can hire a reliable social security lawyer to help them devise a plan where they will receive the most benefits. Once they do this, they can look forward to reaping the rewards of all their hard work.

(Source: Retirement: When you should take Social Security, USA TODAY, February 23, 2015)