Estimated tax savings. If you and your spouse are the right ages, you can use one simple strategy to collect an EXTRA $50,000 or so in Social Security benefits. But it gets even better: while you’re collecting this additional amount, your own Social Security benefits continue to grow for an even bigger payout!

But you need to act fast, because lawmakers—in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-74)—deemed this strategy a loophole and enacted a new law to end it on April 30, 2016.

We should mention that this strategy is not a “loophole” as defined by Merriam-Webster, which says that a loophole is “an error in the way a law, rule, or contract is written that makes it possible for some people to legally avoid obeying it.”

The spousal strategy came into being in the year 2000 as part of the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act (P.L. 106-182.). You can debate whether lawmakers understood the benefits of the 2000 law they created.

As for the loophole notation in the budget act, you can bet that the use of the word “loophole” by the media in describing the benefits of the spousal strategy put lawmakers on notice, and that likely triggered the upcoming shutdown of the strategy.

So if you and your spouse are the right ages, here is what you must do immediately to lock in your $50,000 or more in newfound money. ... Log in to view full article.