I have a negative value SSA-1099 (i.e. Box 5 is a negative value). When I enter that info, my Federal Tax due does not change. That does not appear correct to me.....

[ThomasM125]

That means that you have already included social security payments on your tax return in a previous year that had to be paid back. You must have benefits repaid in Box 4.

If the amount in box 5 is less than $3,000, you can deduct the repayments on this year's tax return as itemized deductions. Since most people don't itemize anymore, that may not benefit you.

If more than $3,000 you can refigure your tax in the year the benefits where paid back to and enter the tax benefit on our current year tax return. Please respond if this applies to you and someone will explain how to do this.

[adampierce]

Thomas,

   Thank you for your reply.  "Previous year" here is way back in 2008 when the SSA benefits were received.  There is an open dispute with SSA regarding the payments, but it appears SSA intercepted our refund (over $8k) for tax year 2019.

   To your question, indeed there is exactly the same amount as a positive number in Box 4, as is the negative amount in Box 5 (i.e. the refund interception noted above).  Since we effectively no longer got the SSA benefits, but 2008 was a long time ago, what do we do?  Isn't there a 7 year window to refigure past year taxes?

  In case it helps, we did use TurboTax back in 2008 too, so if somehow we need that info or can resubmit the 2008 return, that may be possible.....

[ThomasM125 · Accepted solution]

Per the information in IRS publication 915, if the repayment year is after 1983, you can refigure your tax in that year and enter the credit on your current year tax return as follows, per IRS Publication 915:

Unfortunately, the 2008 TurboTax software is not available from Intuit, so you would have to recalculate your tax return manually if you don't have the TurboTax disk from that year. 

[]Edited 2/9/21 at 5:31 AM PST]

@adampierce

[adampierce]

I have always exclusively used the online product (vs desktop).  Does that help?