2.7 million receive incorrect SSA-1099 form

Alert seniors were catching the problem before it came out in the press, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Wisconsin. I first heard about it from a high school friend who usually sends out jokes and local news. He said his 1099 overstated what he'd received. He and a lot of others.

"Corrected forms will be sent to all affected Social Security recipients and to the IRS by the end of the month, Lassiter said. Because corrected information is on the way, he said the Social Security Administration decided not to tell the public about the mistake until asked about it by a reporter.

The bad forms over-reported the amount of benefits received by some Social Security beneficiaries who purchase Medicare Advantage or prescription drug plans under Social Security parts C and D, Lassiter said. The incorrect information is in Box 3 of the form, "Benefits Paid."

In some cases, Social Security computers preparing the 1099s included premiums for those plans paid in 2006 as part of benefits received in 2007, leading to the error, Lassiter said.

In Wisconsin, 61,511 bad forms were sent out. Florida had the most, 196,742, followed by Texas at 188,361, California, 157,288, and Illinois, 124,707. In all, the Social Security Administration sent out about 57 million 1099-SSAs."

I didn't see anything about Ohio. Our SS numbers have been stolen so many times by inept state and OSU employees, maybe the error-angels just by-passed us this time. They say it will cost $1 million to fix it. That's impossible, unless they think because they don't use stamps on the envelopes, it doesn't cost anything. I guess the additional forms and labor is just funny money. And of course, no one will figure the cost the citizens will pay their accountants to refile. You don't ever want to have mismatched numbers and give them cause to audit--that's really a big expense.