Webinar - Social Security August 2020

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Hello and welcome to the webinar. Brought to you today by Boss Retirement Solutions and Advisors, uh, titled three Social Security Mistakes That Could Cost You a Fortune. And Tyson. We're super excited, uh, to have so many of you join us today. Uh, as we see many people still logging on, uh, to get this valuable information. Just want to remind you of a couple quick things. Uh, number one is Boss Retirement Solutions and Advisors. Um, we are not affiliated with the US government or any government agency. We're gonna talk a lot about Social security, uh, today, but keep in mind that we're not giving tax or legal advice. This is for educational purposes only. Uh, we're also not gonna talk about any other financial strategies up today other than, uh, social Security. And, uh, keep in mind, just like anything, um, you are responsible for making your own individual investment decisions.

Speaker 1 (00:59):

Um, all the information that we're gonna share today does not constitute tax or legal advice or investment advice, and we'd always encourage you to talk with the appropriate, uh, tax and legal professionals. Tyson looks like a lot of people are on. Let's go ahead and get started. We, we love how many people are, are on the webinar today. And just to introduce ourselves a little bit, I'm Tyson Thacker, along with my brother Ryan Thacker. We are the Retirement Brothers as we're known on our radio show. And, and a lot of times when, when people, uh, see us on TV and other places, we'll talk about that here in just a second. We grew up right here along the Wasatch Front. We grew up in Cottonwood Heights, right in between the, the canyons between Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. Great place to grow up. We just loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:43):

Uh, so many great people to learn from. Really fun to be able to go skiing all the time. Our dad owned a barbershop in the Cottonwood Mall. He was an entrepreneur, taught us, uh, to love running a business. And, uh, we knew from the get-go, number one, that we loved helping people. Number two, we love, uh, being able to help people with their finances. That's something we've always been passionate about. And number three, we knew that we wanted to stay in Utah. And so, uh, from that Boss Retirement Solutions and Advisors was born. And man, we have had such a great time getting to know so many great people along, along the Wasatch Front. Absolutely. You may have seen us on a lot of different media outlets. We've been fortunate to be featured on some of the most respected media outlets like Fox News, N B C and cnn.

Speaker 1 (02:31):

And we also locally host a weekly radio show on Talk Radio 1 0 5 0.9 K N R S, and also KSL News Radio. And, uh, Tyson, we also, uh, the bald-headed, uh, brothers get on TV once in a while as well. Uh, you'll see us on every major network, uh, cbs, N B C, um, and ABC locally here. And we just love giving good information to good people so that you can make great decisions. And Tyson thousands of families that we've helped, that's led to a couple pretty significant things for us. Yeah, so the first thing that, uh, I wanna share is we were just named for the fifth time as Inc 5,000 fastest growing companies, uh, in the world. And it, it's pretty prestigious company. Uh, there's only 4% of any firms, um, anywhere who do this five years in a row. We're pretty proud of that.

Speaker 1 (03:25):

Uh, we're pretty excited as well to be winners two years in a row. Best of state award winners for retirement planning. And we couldn't do it without all of the great people that we meet each and every day. Okay. Enough about us. Let's talk about you who are on, on the, the webinar today. Uh, I'll tell you, those awards are great, but what we're most proud of is we've helped thousands of families just like you retire successfully right here on the Wasatch Front. And what we've learned by helping, uh, all every single family is no one family is the same. That's right. There's not a cookie cutter. Everyone's life experiences are a little bit different. And, uh, we just love helping families make good decisions so that they can focus on what matters most to them in retirement. And one of those key topics is the topic of today's webinar, and that is Social security.

Speaker 1 (04:17):

Yeah. And making an informed decision on Social security, right, Tyson? That's right. And according to Forbes, or excuse me, according to USA Today, social Security has been referred to as the near perfect source of retirement income by the Stanford Center of Longevity. There's a couple reasons for that that we'll get to, but here's the problem is it's confusing. It's a confusing program. And simple decisions can cost you thousands of dollars that don't go in your pocket. And here's, here's why it's considered a near perfect source of retirement income is number one, it's not dependent on the stock market. That's right. Number two, it gives people an income source, which is so important all throughout their retirement life. And so the third thing is, is you don't have to rely on things like how much inflation is or, or things like that on a, because you get a little cost of living adjustment, you, you usually get a cost of living adjustment.

Speaker 1 (05:14):

And so it's one of these foundational income approaches that we do with everybody through the Boss Retirement Blueprint, which by the way, boss stands for Build the Optimal System of Security. A lot of people say we're building the optimal social security benefit as well. Well, and that's what today is all about. Well, and Tyson, uh, we just passed a milestone. Yes. Um, 25,000 families. We've now, oh, love it. We've now given good information to over 25,000 families right here on the Wasatch Front to help him make an informed decision on social security. And you know what, Tyson, it is confusing. Um, according to Forbes Magazine, it says that there are 2,728 rules in the Social Security Handbook. And there's literally thousands rules upon those rules. So people are flying blind when it comes to collecting their social security benefits. And Tyson, that is really scary to think about.

Speaker 1 (06:07):

If you go back to the very first paycheck that you ever received as a kid, 12.4% of, of that paycheck has been coming out between you and your employer and going into Social Security. So that's right. We, we get really frustrated when you call it an entitlement program. <laugh>, it's not an entitlement program. You've been working really hard. It's your money for that. It's 30, 40, 50 years. Some people more than that, right? And you better understand how to take it out. So, Tyson, how can we help people right now, if you don't have a lot of time to stay on this webinar and we know your time's valuable, what can people do? Well, at the end of our presentation today, we're gonna share a no risk opportunity for a free customized social security analysis. But we said, let's just offer it up front in case somebody is limited for time.

Speaker 1 (06:50):

This free analysis could help you increase your social security income by more than $100,000. Here's the best part, Ryan. It's not going to cost you a dime if you do it in association with today's webinar. This is just being offered to everyone today over the next couple minutes on the webinar though. So you've got to be sure to take advantage of this opportunity. Call the number on your screen right now, [inaudible] 8 9 3 98 93. Or simply click the button to request your consultation. Just remember, this is customized to you and your specific situation. Everybody's different. And what we love when we look at each of these 25,000 families that we've served, it's made each of their retirements that much better in concert with everything else that they want to do in retirement. That's exactly right. Let's dive into the three common social security mistakes. Oh, I mean, this is gonna be fun if we look at this.

Speaker 1 (07:47):

I mean, we hear all, we see all these crazy scenarios. Um, my favorite one was the lady asked this one time, which spouse am I gonna claim my benefit on <laugh>? And I'm like, well, how many spouses have you had? And she's like, I've been married nine times. <laugh> Nine times. Wow. Yeah. I mean, hopefully the last one she's still married to and hopefully he made the most money, right? So that, uh, that she could get the most outta Social Security. But, um, we see common mistakes. We're gonna focus on the top three right now, uh, because these top three, well, the, they could add up to a small fortune and, uh, mistake number one, it's simply just claiming your benefits at the wrong time. You can take Social Security at 62, you can take it at 62 in a few months, 66, 67, all the way up to age 70.

Speaker 1 (08:33):

So many people, the reason why that, that quote that we opened up with is 96% of Americans will leave an average of $111,000 on the table. It's right there. Number one, claiming your benefits at the wrong time. And, uh, second is triggering higher taxes in retirement. And, uh, that's a big one as well. And third is believing that the Social Security Administration is there to help you with personalized advice. Right? Now, it doesn't mean that the people of the Social Security Administration are bad people, it just means that they don't have all the information to that, that they can make an informed decision to help you. So they're told, unless there's a specific question that you ask, you can't, they can't answer more than that, right? Yes. So Tyson, let's dive into these mistakes and go through 'em in detail. So mistake number one is, as we just mentioned, claiming your social security benefits of the wrong time.

Speaker 1 (09:30):

Here's the quote, Ryan, that, that you just alluded to. Uh, and it, it was published in a research study in Forbes, 96% of retirees lose an average of $111,000 in Social security income. And it's because they claim their benefits at the wrong time. That's just about everybody. 96% <laugh>, only 4% are doing it right. And it's probably the 25,000 that we've helped along the Wasatch Fund. <laugh>, that's right, <laugh>. Um, but think about how far that money could go. Think about how conventional wisdom says, for instance, that you should wait until age 70. So many people say, Hey, look, it's really simple. All I'm gonna do is I'm gonna wait until age 70 to claim my benefits. If I do that, I'm gonna maximize my dollars. But often this one, this type of one size fits all strategy could end up costing you a lot of money because Ryan, here's something else that we do as part of the planning process, specifically with Social security.

Speaker 1 (10:30):

But it, it goes through the Boss Retirement blueprint as well. We talked to you about your grandparents' longevity, we talked to you about your parents' longevity. We talked about what your current health looks like because we wanna customize this even for how long the money's going to last and do combinations. There's specific thousands of combinations that you can do, um, with Social Security. And we want to give you the most bang for your buck. Well, and if you want to maximize Social Security, it's really simple. Wait until 70 claim your benefits the highest check, and then hope you live a really long time. That's why I'm saying there's all these combinations. We wanna talk about it in a specific way because everybody doesn't live that long. Fact, if I joke about it all the time, because what happens if you die at 68 and your plan was to wait until 70?

Speaker 1 (11:16):

What happens if you don't make it to 64? Right? What happens if you burn through all of your cash savings? There's so many scenarios that don't work. And so we want to help you to customize it. So Ryan, let's talk about, uh, a case study with mistake number one with Mike and Joan. Well, Mike and Joan right here in Salt Lake. And this is the classic example that we see that Mike, his plan when he came in was Social Security was, I'm gonna delay my benefits until I turn 70 because that's gonna give me the highest check. Right? That seems to make sense. But the problem with that is, number one, you don't know how long you're gonna live. And you've gotta look all these different combinations. So we went to work looking at their entire plan. The entire plan looks at how much you've saved for retirement.

Speaker 1 (12:00):

Do you have pension? Do you have other income streams that are coming on? What risk are you willing to take, um, with your investments, all of these other pieces, and then you add taxes on top of that. Um, so after looking at the entire plan, we came up with a different strategy for Mike that would yield him a whole lot more money than just simply waiting till 70. In fact, the plan that we came up with, uh, for claiming Social security could give Mike and Joanne an extra $200,976 in Social security income throughout their lifetime. And, uh, this is also came at a time when it would give 'em money while they were young to be able to travel and, uh, also just not back load that income in retirement when really those, those global years of retirement are probably, yeah, they may have been feeling too sick to be able to do anything.

Speaker 1 (12:52):

Now it's not just the additional funds, Ryan, that we give people in retirement from their benefit. It also has to do with taxes as well. So what did we do, uh, for these good folks as it relates to taxes? Well, this is where we have to look at the full picture. Now, we look at their retirement accounts, their IRAs, their 401ks, their whatever you have. You may have TSPs or 4 57 s or 4 0 3 [inaudible] or whatever it is, but we were able to save them an additional $332,236. Think about that. $332,236. Wow, that's a lot of money. So you add both of those together, Tyson, that's a grand total of over half a million dollars. $533,212 in additional money between the lift and Social security benefits by taking that early in retirement and the tax savings on the back end with their retirement accounts. Powerful. There are so many people who miss out on both of these scenarios.

Speaker 1 (13:50):

If they're just looking at, okay, I'm gonna take it at 62 cause my buddy told me that I need to take it at 62 cause I don't know how long, long I'm gonna live or I'm gonna wait till 70. You need to do planning. Planning is the key, right? That's right. So mistake number two, triggering higher taxes on your benefits according to Motley Fool, you may be subject to paying taxes on as much as 85 per percent of your social security benefits. Now, Ryan, keep in mind that that's not your tax bracket. Uh, that is, so many people confuse that, right? So many people confuse that they look at the tax brackets. Like there's not an 85% bracket, right? Let's say somebody's gonna get $36,000 in social security benefits between their husband and wife. In other words, what could happen there, the 85% is they could be paying taxes on 85% of that $36,000 at whatever their bracket is, runs it through as adjusted gross income.

Speaker 1 (14:43):

Absolutely. So here's the bottom line though. The amount of money that you were counting on to help support you all through your retirement years could end up being a small fraction of what you thought it was gonna be. And this could have a huge impact on the type of lifestyle that you can afford in retirement. Or even worse, it could, it could force you to go back to work because you don't have enough money. We don't want either one of these things to happen. We want to give you the, the ability to understand how this works. So Ryan, let's jump into case stub study number two as it relates to this so people can get a clear example of how this could apply to them. Well, remember folks, it's not how much you make. It's what you keep sure what you can spend in retirement.

Speaker 1 (15:24):

So Bob and Sarah, um, Bob work for a local construction firm. He had a pension that made up a significant portion of his retirement income. And his wife had been a stay-at-home mom, been a homemaker. And, um, unbeknownst to them, their strategy to claim their social security benefits was gonna send their taxes through the roof. And so what we did is we looked at this and said, wait, let's, let's control the timing of how and when we do the claim, the social security benefits. Cuz so many people don't realize if you have a pension income like, um, this couple did here, and then you add social security on top of that, you're paying taxes through the nose. You could be pushing yourself up into a new bracket and be doing some things you may not even be aware of. So our strategy helped save them $78,391.

Speaker 1 (16:17):

Now this is just on the taxes, on their social security benefits alone. So that doesn't include like the last example where it was their 401ks and everything else. It was just in how they pulled their social security money out in combination with their pension. Think about that. That's it's tens of thousands of dollars just in taxes on their social security benefit by itself because of the combination of their pension and social security. Now we want one step further, just like what you talked about in the first example, we gave them another strategy that could help them on their retirement accounts save an additional $288,807. So you add those together and that is $367,198 in tax savings between social security and their retirement accounts. So powerful. That ain't lunch money. Tyson, that's not Trump change as we like to say. And so let's, let's go to, to mistake number three that we see on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 (17:19):

And here's what it is. It's counting on the Social Security Administration for personalized advice. Now we're gonna use this quote from Forbes. According to a study from the us, US Government Accountability Office, social security represents representatives routinely make mistakes in the application process costing people up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ouch. Now, again, let me underscore, in their defense, it's not their job to maximize your benefits. It's not their job to be the financial planning, uh, and give you a plan that's going to change the scenario. Like we mentioned before, it's only their job to answer the questions you have. But if you don't understand how all this works, you're not even gonna know what questions to ask. That's why we cut through the clutter and we give you a social security analysis that's really gonna help you to narrow this down that's customized for you.

Speaker 1 (18:13):

So Ryan, let's use a case study for mistake number three as well. Just on the social security side. Let's not worry about the taxes, let's not worry about how that all works. Let's just focus on, um, this next, next example of how much they could get in additional benefits. So Dave and Nina, um, they are planning on claiming their social security benefits early in retirement. Uh, but in their case, they didn't really need this money up front. And so we created a different strategy that would increase their benefits. Just social security, like you said, we're not talking about tax or anything like this. Just social security income throughout their lifetime by an additional $166,691. Wow. Now they're excited about that. They go down, the Social security administration, get ready to file, and they run into a brick wall because when they go down there, the Social Security Administration tells them, Hey, you can't use that strategy.

Speaker 1 (19:06):

And they're like, oh, wait a second. I need to go talk to, uh, you know, our advisor. And so they come back, talk to us, and they're like, no, you absolutely can do that. So you need to go back. And this was a back and forth process that happened multiple times with the Social Security Administration. And here again, Tyson, it's not that they're bad people down there, it's just they may the way they may have been trained and they're not aware of all the strategies. It also could be that they're just overworked and they're tired and they're not thinking through that. That is his strategy. They haven't been trained on it specifically, as you mentioned. Bottom line is, we went back and forth and we finally said, here is the specific language that the Social Security Administration cannot miss. Yeah. Speak their language. It's their language.

Speaker 1 (19:48):

And they went down and they said, oh yeah, sure, we can do that. That's, yes, that's great. Let's do it. Let's go ahead and, and make that happen. So this is where you really need to pay attention. No one's gonna watch your bottom line like you do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so having a strategy, not relying on the Social Security administration and, and like we talked about earlier, they can't, they can't give customized advice because they don't have all the information. They can give you the numbers. Here's what you've paid in, here's what you're eligible for, but all the different combinations and how that's gonna work, especially if you're married between you and your spouse. You really need some customized advice. Well, and here's the other thing Ryan to keep in mind is this stuff is constantly changing. Yes. There's rules that and, and regulations that change every single year.

Speaker 1 (20:32):

And even in entry year, a lot of people get confused. And that's why we're here to help. And here's the bottom line, Ryan. The numbers don't lie. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake and with some very strategic planning, we helped Mike and Joanne with have an additional $533,212 that they can put back in their pocket and spend all through their retirement that years. I love that. So great. So rewarding. Bob and Sarah. We helped them to save $367,198 in taxes on their social security benefits plus more, again, a big amount of money. And then Dave and Nina, we help them generate an additional $166,691 just in Social security income. Now, keep in mind that these are just a few of the 25,000 great families that have, we have helped, been able to help and the play out every day. Whether we meet you on a Zoom call or whether we have the opportunity to meet you in one of our six offices along the Wasatch front.

Speaker 1 (21:40):

But this kind of money could help you do more for your kids and your grandkids. And isn't that what it's all about, Ryan? Absolutely. And it could help you buy that vacation home that you've always thought about, enjoy more travel, the list goes on and on. Let us help you customize your own benefit and help you to maximize all of the dollars with taxes as well. You know, as you look at Mike and Joanne, Bob and Sarah, Dave and Nina, of course we've changed the names Sure. To protect the families, but just put your name there. Absolutely. Just put your name absolutely there. What if you could be like Bob and Sarah and have an additional $367,198? Wouldn't that be worth just having a conversation? And so you have a choice. You can do nothing and risk losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or you can be proactive, get a customized social security analysis to fit your, uh, customized situation that could help you ring every nickel out of your benefits.

Speaker 1 (22:36):

Um, and that's what we recommend, right? Absolutely. If come on in and have this conversation, there's so many things that you can't control right now. You can't control covid 19, you can't control when earthquakes happen. You can't control who the next president's gonna be. You can't control the stock market, all these things. But what you can control is you do have a choice. And we like to invite you to come in and get a customized social security analysis. So as promised, we wanted to offer a customized social security analysis and we're gonna help you in so many areas, but here are a few things that you're gonna get with this analysis. We're gonna show you exactly when you should file to get your most income. In fact, one of the things that we do is we have the opportunity you bring in your so most recent social security statement.

Speaker 1 (23:20):

If you've never seen that before, or if you haven't seen it in a long time, you can go to ssa.gov, fill out just a little bit of information, again, ssa.gov. Fill out that information and you'll, you'll have your updated report. And we see so many times where there's mistakes. So when you bring that in, we're gonna be able to show you the exact timing to get the most income from Social Security, the impact that your decision could have on taxes and Medicare premiums. And believe me, we've shown you taxes. We didn't have a chance today to show you Medicare, but if you do the wrong thing, you could be paying through the nose for Medicare premiums for the exact same coverage that your next door neighbor is getting for a lot less. We don't want that to happen. So we're gonna help you to do that.

Speaker 1 (24:06):

We're gonna maximize your spousal benefits. So many people have no idea that there are all of these different combinations as to how to maximize spousal benefits. We're also going to help you to see if you're eligible for additional benefits that you may not even know exist plus so much more you owe it to yourself. This is not an entitlement program, Ryan, that's what the federal government calls it. But this is your hard-earned money that from the beginning of your first check that you ever had social security taken out of, it's been 12.4% of your check. You owe it to yourself to maximize every dollar. So what does it cost? Right? That's what everyone always ask us is what is the typical cost of a customized social security analysis? Now, there's some firms out there that will charge hundreds or several hundred dollars up to a thousand dollars to run this analysis.

Speaker 1 (24:59):

There's also a lot of firms who don't even offer it, right? Absolutely. They skip right over it and say, Hey, let's just talk about the investments. We do this absolutely for free. So you don't have to worry about paying any costs. When you come in and sit down with us, we're gonna give you an opportunity to schedule an appointment, come in, sit down with one of our advisors on our team. That's very, very good helping you customize the scenario, uh, for you. And you're not gonna pay a thin dime, Tyson. That's right. Now, here's the kicker. We would love to do this for everyone, but there's a couple of things that you need to, to understand to qualify. The strategies first are best suited for people who have saved at least $200,000 for retirement. Because if you've seen in these examples, Ryan, when we talk about taxes, when we talk about spousal income, when we talk about all these different combinations, we wanna do o with the entire plan to maximize these dollars for you.

Speaker 1 (25:53):

So we've found that $200,000 is pretty much the sweet spot on, on up to be able to help to, to maximize all of those dollars. Second, it's critical that you have not filed for your social security benefits yet because that's where the power comes in, is we can help you. We call it the Retirement Red Zone, Ryan, about five years before you retire. We wanna be able to help as many people as possible, not only with maximizing and how to, how to control the dollars, but also to be able to help with social security benefits. I love it, man. Uh, we also, uh, we have six offices right here on the Wasatch front. You can come visit us in person at any one of those six offices. Um, or we can even do it over a Zoom call. Um, and we'd just like to invite you to come in and, uh, you must call today to get this free analysis.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

Give us a call [inaudible] eight nine three ninety eight ninety three. Or you can click right there on the screen. Remember, there's no cost, there's no obligation. Give us a call right now. [inaudible] eight nine three and 98 93. Again, 25,000 families just like you have picked up the phone and given us a call and so they can get good information to help them make great decisions. Remember this, remember retiring successfully. It doesn't happen by accident. It starts by having a plan. And this free customized analysis could be the very thing that helps you be able to plan and get better healthcare, be able to pay off some debt, be able to travel, be able to do the things that you want to do. We want to thank you for joining us today on this webinar. Remember, uh, Tyson Thacker and Ryan Thacker from Boss Retirement Solutions and Advisors right here in Salt Lake. We are absolutely dedicated. This is our mission to help you be able to have confidence going through in retirement. Thanks so much for joining us today. Give us a call and remember retiring successfully. It doesn't happen by accident, it starts with a plan. We'll see you in the office soon. Thanks.