---

@BobKamman wrote:

So it turns out Pub 915 says you can net his negative against her positive.  And that still leaves you with a negative?  If it's under $3,000 you're out of luck.  If more, you can claim it on Schedule A, Line 16, or go through the computations for the Section 1341 credit.  

But it's the net Box 5 amount that you deduct.  Not Box 4.  

---

I think Bob gets the Solve on this one.

If they each get $8K and he repays $16K it sounds like that nets out to $0 (or within $3K of it).  No income and no deduction in the TCJA era.

Pub 915 (2022) page 15 bottom of column 1 into column 2:

Repayment of benefits received in an earlier year. If
the total amount shown in box 5 of all of your Forms
SSA-1099 and RRB-1099 is a negative figure, you may be
able to deduct part of this negative figure that represents
benefits you included in gross income in an earlier year, if
the figure is more than $3,000.

This language aligns with IRC 1341 which requires the repayment amount to be "included in gross income for a prior taxable year."  In this case only 85% of the prior SSA benefits were "included in gross income" under IRC 86.