I have a couple of relatives who are affected by this.  It's too late for one of them, she died recently,  a decade after the household income was cut in half.  She lost all of her husband's Social Security benefits because of her teacher's pension.  My other relative really wasn't aware of how either the WEP or GPO was calculated.  But then, neither was I.  I did some research and one Social Security website calculator said that the maximum reduction for WEP, regardless of the amount of pension received, is $547 a month.  This lines up with one news story I found, that reported the change would increase benefits a maximum of $540.  (It's more than that, though, for GPO.)  

Tax preparers need to spot how this affects not only current clients (increase your estimated payments, or have more tax withheld!) but former clients.  I have had many clients drop off the radar when retirement lowered their income below the filing requirements.  Some of them, though, still came close.  One couple took $20,000 from an IRA to buy a new car.  This plus pensions made some of their SS taxable, and generated an IRS notice two years later, proposing tax and late-filing penalty.  If they had called me, I could have told them to finance some of the car at low interest rates and pay the rest off in one or two years, from lower IRA distributions.  But then, they hadn't seen me for years. 

How many widows collecting only $2,000 a month in pension, will now start collecting another $2,000 a month in survivor benefits?  And who is going to remind them about taxes?  We might be able to reach them by asking our clients to spot them.  Is it too late to add it to your annual newsletter?