Tzar

Question for those who lived in the UK and moved to the US. Does UK pension count as a pension for the purpose of US Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)? My understanding is that if it does, then US SS will be reduced by 1/2 of the UK pension amount. Same question about UK corporate pension: does it count as a pension for WEP?

tht

The question you pose is not neuanced enough, you would need to know what the contributions towards the UK pension were to know what proportion of the pension is subject to WEP. There is a thread on here dedicated to it, search for Class 2 contributions:
https://www.gov.uk/national-insuranc...urance-classes
You also need to know the total number of years contributions to both.

durham_lad

Yes to both questions.

SS will be reduced by up a half to the first SS “bend point”. You can use SSA form 308 to report the foreign pensions and section 5 is where you report the number of years of voluntary contributions.

https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-308.pdf

EdgeAA

I have checked into WEP a little bit and the impacts it has but I'm still a long way from retirement. Just wanted to check based on how things are now, I moved to the US when I was 30 and started work a couple of months before my 31st birthday. Assuming I stay employed the entire time, I'll have 30 years of work history/social security contributions in the US by the time I'm 61. Will that mean that I won't be subject to WEP on anything and can take the full UK State Pension alongside Social Security? (Assuming they're all still in place by then anyways)

durham_lad

correct.

I will have 28 years of SS contributions so I don’t expect much of a reduction due to WEP as the amount of reduction starts declining from 20 years down to zero at 30 years

tht

I am in a similar situation to you, moved here around 30. My read was you don't have to work the entire time just have 30 qualifying years, you can get up to the maximum in way less than 12 months on a good salary, so partal years working would count and/or self employment or income from a rental property if you set it up to trigger a schedule C filing vs E could also meet the requirement since that's subject to SS.

vespucci

Posts here should be for the benefit of those on low wages as well as others. Please do not omit to mention that you need "SUBSTANTIAL EARNINGS" ($26,550 in 2021) in a year for it to qualify for exemption from WEP.