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Alert: Student Earned Income Exclusion (Couple)

You and/or your spouse have monthly earnings, all or part of which must be excluded using the Student Earned Income Exclusion (SEIE) if you are students under age 18 and you have not reached the calendar-year SEIE limit of $6,840 per year (in calendar year 2012). This amount was $6,600 in 2011.

You may not spread out this exclusion over the year. If both of you are students you must exclude the full amount of both of your earnings up to $1,700 each month (in 2012) until you reach the calendar-year limit. If only one of you is a student, you must exclude the student's earnings up to the monthly limit until you reach the calendar-year limit. (This amount was $1,640 in 2011. For a table of previous years' limits, see the main SEIE topic.)

NOTE: For purposes of calculating your Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit amount, you and your spouse can exclude earnings if both of you are receiving SSI, or if one is receiving SSI and SSA deems the other's earned income as available to the SSI recipient. The two of you can exclude earned income only up to the SEIE yearly and monthly limits that apply to a single individual.

WorkWORLD will not calculate the results for this situation until you take one of the following actions:

·           Yearly Limit Already Reached: If you and your spouse have already reached your limit this calendar year and therefore cannot claim any earnings as SEIE this month, scroll up to the SEIE questions. Answer "NO" that both you and your spouse are not claiming any earnings as SEIE, and answer "YES" to the question asking if you and your spouse have reached your calendar-year limit.

·           Yearly Limit Would Be Reached: If you and your spouse would reach your yearly limit by claiming an amount less than the combined amount you both earned (and less than the monthly SEIE limit) scroll up to the SEIE question and answer "YES" that you and your spouse do claim earnings, enter the amounts that would cause you to reach the limit, and answer "YES" to the question asking if the total amount you and your spouse claim as SEIE causes you to reach your limit.

·           Yearly Limit Not Reached: If you and your spouse would not reach your yearly limit by claiming the amount you both earned (up to the monthly SEIE limit), scroll up to the SEIE questions. Answer "YES" that you and your spouse do claim earnings as SEIE, and enter the amounts that you and your spouse earn (up to a total equaling the monthly SEIE limit).

NOTE: Your SSA Claims Representative is supposed to ensure that you receive your full SEIE automatically without any action on your part. WorkWORLD users have, however, reported to us that the exclusions have sometimes not been applied. You should check with your Claims Representative to make sure that your SEIE is taken into account in calculating your benefit amount.

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