You are preparing for retirement, but a month before your Social Security begins, you discover your benefit will be reduced by hundreds of dollars per month because of your CPP.
In this video, we discuss:
– Qualifying for U.S. Social Security and Canada Pension (CPP)
– The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)
– Strategies for increasing your Social Security and reducing your WEP reduction
You can watch the video here:
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I thought WEP could no longer come back to bite! After legislation eliminated WEP in 2025 and made it retroactive to January 2024, I received a refund in 2025 of several thousand dollars. However, SSA never responded to my spouse when she notified them back in 2022 that, like me, she had started receiving a non-covered gov’t pension (CPP). In other words, they never reduced her benefit due to WEP. Now, April 2026, they have sent her a letter claiming she owes them over $4,000 because they should have applied the WEP reduction effective for the 13 months of December 2022 through December 2023. Also, they calculated the reduction to be over 90% of her CPP benefit. My spouse may appeal, but can you give any help with two general questions:
1) Does SSA have a right by law to go back this far and reduce your benefits due to WEP so that you now owe them money?
2) I thought there was a rule whereby SSA would not reduce your benefits by more than 50% of your non-covered pension amount, or does that apply only in some cases.
Hi,
I’m sorry this is happening to you. Yes, I have seen other people that are supposed to be subject to WEP get charged for past years. That is something that is fairly common
Typically, the WEP reduction is only up to 50% of the noncovered pension. However, I believe there are extra penalties if you fail to tell SSS about the noncovered pension when you are applying for social security which may have happened here.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Best regards,
Bryan
No, this wasn’t a case where the Canadian non-covered pension was not reported and she was already receiving Social Security when she reported it. She will appeal and I will post what happens when we get a result from that. Thanks Bryan.