SSA-1099 has lump sum payments for 4 specific years and a 5th amount "Paid in 2022 for Other Tax Years". TurboTax's Lump Sum questions want a specific year. What do I do?

[rjs]

Is the amount "Paid in 2022 for Other Tax Years" the sum of the other 4 amounts?

[wthughes4321]

No. The four previous years are each under $50. The Paid in 2022 for Other Tax Years is over $300. It’s like Social Security underpaid a small amount for many years and they decided to make up for it all at once.

[rjs · Accepted solution]

For such small amounts, it hardly seems worth the trouble of going through the lump-sum calculations. Even if you had the lump sum amounts for each earlier year, you would need a copy of your tax return for each year that's involved.

The "lump-sum election" is optional. It doesn't always save you any money. Unless your income in the earlier years was significantly less than your 2022 income, it might save you very little, or possibly nothing at all. So the simplest thing for you to do is to just tell TurboTax that you did not receive any lump-sum payments. That's what I would suggest doing.

[wthughes4321]

Ah, so that’s why I was having to dig through papers to get the all that info. I was puzzled because the lump sum amount is included in the amount being claimed (Box 5) for this year. 

If I’m understanding your reply correctly, the only reason to dig through all past years is to try to mitigate the tax burden for this year. If I am not able to find a SSA form for a year or have “Other Tax Years” put together, as in this case, just keep on keeping on. Pay the taxes on the income this year (when the money was received) and move on.