Why We Built This Site
The rules governing Medicare, Social Security, and retirement taxes were not written for the people who depend on them most. A 68-year-old trying to understand whether her Part B premium will spike because she took an extra IRA distribution two years ago should not need to cross-reference four different government publications to get an answer. That gap between how the rules work and how they are explained is what Seniors Audit was built to close.
We launched this site because we kept finding that the most widely-shared information about senior benefits was either dangerously incomplete, written primarily to generate insurance leads, or so hedged with legal disclaimers that it told readers nothing useful. We believe older Americans deserve the same quality of plain-language explanation that lawyers and financial planners give their paying clients — available for free, with no pitch attached.
What You Will Find Here
Every resource on this site falls into one of two categories:
Interactive calculators built from the actual formulas and tables published by the IRS, Social Security Administration, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. When you use our Social Security Full Retirement Age Calculator, the result comes from the same birth-year chart in the SSA POMS — not an approximation. When you use our Medicare IRMAA Calculator, the brackets are drawn directly from the CMS annual rate announcement.
Plain-English guides that walk through how rules actually work with real dollar amounts and realistic examples. We write for a single reader: an intelligent adult who does not have a background in tax law but deserves a complete and accurate picture. We do not talk down to our readers, and we do not omit the complicated parts because they are complicated.
The Five Topics We Cover
- Medicare — Part A, Part B, Part C (Medicare Advantage), Part D drug coverage, Medigap supplement plans, IRMAA income surcharges, late-enrollment penalties, and appeals.
- Social Security — retirement benefit timing, spousal and survivor benefits, the earnings test, delayed retirement credits, and how benefits are taxed.
- Medicaid and savings programs — Medicaid eligibility for seniors, the four Medicare Savings Program tiers (QMB, SLMB, QI, QDWI), Extra Help for drug costs, and SNAP food assistance rules for older adults.
- IRS notices — plain-English decoders for the CP14, CP504, LT11, CP90, and CP2000 notices that seniors are most likely to receive, including exact response deadlines.
- Retirement taxes — how pensions, 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, required minimum distributions, and Social Security interact on your federal tax return.
Our Editorial Standards
Every guide and calculator on Seniors Audit is reviewed against official government source documents before it is published. We cite ssa.gov, irs.gov, medicare.gov, and cms.gov directly — you will find those source links at the bottom of each article. When rules change (as Medicare premiums do each fall), we update our numbers before the new year takes effect.
We do not have advertisers telling us which products to recommend. We do not earn commissions on insurance enrollments. Our only goal is that when you leave one of our pages, you understand your situation better than when you arrived.
How to Use This Site
If you are just getting started, the best place to begin depends on where you are in the process:
- Turning 65 soon: Start with our Medicare at 65 Decision Checklist and the Medicare Enrollment Deadline Calculator.
- Deciding when to claim Social Security: The Should I Delay Social Security Wizard walks through break-even math using your own numbers.
- Worried about a tax bill or IRS notice: Use our IRS Notice Decoders — each one tells you what the notice means, what you owe (if anything), and exactly how much time you have to respond.
- Trying to lower costs: Run the Universal Senior Benefits Screener to check eligibility for Medicare Savings Programs, Extra Help, SNAP, and LIHEAP in a single session.
We are glad you are here. Every resource is free, and none of it requires an account or an email address.