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Thursday, December 27, 2018

Liz Weston: It's Time to Fix Social Security's Tax Burden

People on Social Security need a tax break. The rest of us need to make sure they get it — for everyone's sake.

When Congress made Social Security benefits taxable in 1983, lawmakers didn't index the tax thresholds to inflation. They "forgot" inflation again when adding a second layer of taxation in 1993.

That means the proportion of recipients who have to pay federal income taxes on their benefits keeps increasing. Initially, only 1 in 10 Social Security recipients had to pay any federal tax. Now, it's over half.

Not indexing to inflation is a sneaky way of boosting taxes . Lawmakers can count on growing federal revenue without the politically uncomfortable act of repeatedly voting for those increases.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would be nice

Anonymous said...

Social security is in trouble because Obama took the money and probably gave it to Iran.

Anonymous said...

Stop giving S.S. to the illegals and the lazy unemployed. STOP giving S.S. to children because their parents are dead. STOP giving S.S.to people who NEVER worked a day in their useless life. STOP allowing politicians use it and not pay it back. And the most important part.

MAKE CONGRESS PAY BACK ALL THE TRILLIONS THAT WERE IN THERE WHEN REAGAN /REPUBLICANS BEGAN THROWING USELESS I.O.U.'s in it!!!