Social Security confusion

 One of the things I've learned over the years is that one of the most confusing areas of personal finance is retirement, Social Security, etc. Having a technical degree and having filed individual income tax schedules not related to farming, I've been completely stymied when it comes to retirement. I first dealt with retirement income, taxes, etc. for my father in law. How to take benefits (monthly payments, lump sum, etc) for some types of pension is bad enough. He had a civil service pension and the 1099 form looked nothing like the examples in tax books (different numbers, etc). Figuring out the taxable amount of the pension is a disaster. No wonder tax preparation is a lucrative career.

Now I've seen another possible confusion. My wife passed away recently. Social Security was notified and I'm wondering how the final payments work. Social Security rules say you must return any payment "for the month of death" along with later months. Since her November payment was in the bank before she died I'm wondering if I need to return it. Add to this online complaints of "Social Security yanked the last payment out of the bank and caused everything else to bounce" and I wasn't sure what to expect.

Well, it turns out there's no problem. The Social Security payment "for a month" is paid the next month. Luckily there was no bank deposit the next month. Still, it took me a couple times reading the rules to figure out that "for a month" didn't mean the payment made "in a month", which is a reasonable assumption. I wonder how many people are confused by this. I wonder how many people return the payment for the month of death thinking this what is required.

In the days of the web this is made more difficult because searches related to Social Security and death turn up more responses about the SS death benefit or survivor benefits than how the last payment is treated.

So we have the irony that once somebody has finished their working life and is ready to relax in retirement it suddenly seems an advanced degree is needed to sort out the financial and tax issues.