How Much Tax On Social Security Benefits

The Answer Is More Complicated Than You Might Think Here’s How To Figure It Out

You probably know that Social Security tax is deducted from each of your paychecks and that some of that money comes back to you in the form of benefits in your senior years. But not everyone is aware that the government could gouge you again in retirement by taxing your Social Security benefits if your income in retirement reaches a certain level.

The Social Security benefit tax formula is a little complicated, but it’s something everyone should understand so they can take steps to avoid benefit taxation or at least avoid unpleasant surprises come tax season. Here’s what you need to know to determine if your benefits are at risk of being taxed.

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States That Tax Social Security Benefits

You may have dreamed of a tax-free retirement, but if you live in one of the states that tax social security, your benefits could take a hit.

Are Social Security benefits taxable? You can bet your bottom dollar they are at least by the federal government, which taxes up to 85% of your benefits, depending on your income. But do states tax Social Security? Unfortunately, a dozen states can tack on additional taxes of their own.

States have different ways of taxing Social Security, too. It can be age-based, such as in Colorado where people under 65 may owe taxes on Social Security benefits but older people generally donât. But other states tax Social Security benefits only if income exceeds a specified threshold amount. For example, Missouri taxes Social Security benefits only if your income tops $85,000, or $100,000 for married couples. Then thereâs Utah, which includes Social Security benefits in taxable income, but allows a tax credit for a portion of the benefits subject to tax. Other states have different methods of taxing your Social Security check.

The state-by-state guide to taxes on retirees is updated annually based on information from state tax departments, the Tax Foundation, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Income tax rates and related thresholds are for the 2022 tax year unless otherwise noted.

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How much of your Social Security income is subject to tax depends on a variety of factors, including your federal income tax filing status and your modified adjusted gross income. But with a little up-front planning, which can include everything from rebalancing your portfolio to structuring certain transactions in the right way, you may reduce the possibility of taxes derailing your plans.

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How To Minimize Taxes On Your Social Security

If your Social Security benefit is relatively fixed, albeit with small annual increases, you really have only two avenues left to get into that tax-free zone: reducing tax-exempt interest or adjusted gross income. And since most people dont have tax-exempt interest, youre left with one option.

Therefore, the secret is to reduce your adjusted gross income in order to prevent provisional income from triggering a tax on Social Security, says Kelly Crane, president and chief investment officer at Napa Valley Wealth Management in St. Helena, California.

Here are a few ways to reduce your adjusted gross income to get into the tax-free zone:

Place Some Retirement Income In Roth Accounts

Contributions to a Roth IRA or Roth 401 are made with after-tax dollars. This means theyre not subject to taxation when the funds are withdrawn. Thus, the distributions from your Roth IRA are tax-free, provided that theyre taken after you turn 59½ and have had the account for five or more years. As a result, the Roth payout wont affect your taxable income calculation and wont increase the tax you owe on your Social Security benefits. Distributions taken from a traditional IRA or traditional 401 plan, on the other hand, are taxable.

The Roth advantage makes it wise to consider a mix of regular and Roth retirement accounts well before retirement age. The blend will give you greater flexibility to manage the withdrawals from each account and minimize the taxes you owe on your Social Security benefits. A similar effect can be achieved by managing your withdrawals from conventional savings, money market accounts, or tax-sheltered accounts.

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How Much Of Social Security Is Taxable If Still Working

Some people are genuinely surprised when they learn that their social security income can be taxed. In certain instances, they may not have factored tax payments into their retirement planning. In other instances, people may continue working even though theyre eligible for social security benefits.

Are Your Social Security Benefits Taxable

If your only income for the year was Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits, those benefits will generally not be taxed. However, since very few people can survive on that amount of income, chances are you have other sources that may result in your Social Security benefits being partially taxed.

These are the steps for determining taxability:

• Add up your total income. This includes interest and dividend income, taxable pensions, other investment income, wages from part-time or full-time work plus tax-exempt interest income, excludable interest income from U.S. savings bonds, and excludable foreign-earned income.
• $25,000 if single, head of household or qualifying widow.
• $25,000 if married, filing separately, and lived apart from your spouse for all of 2008.
• $32,000 if married, filing jointly.
• Add your income plus half of your Social Security benefits. If that total amount is more than your base amount, some of your benefits will be taxable. Joint filers Take note! If you are married and filing jointly, you must combine your incomes and benefits to determine if your combined benefits are taxable. This is true even if your spouse had no Social Security benefits. If he/she had income, it must be added to total income to see if you exceed your base amount.

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Proposals To Reduce The Taxation Of Benefits

Despite the strong rationale for taxing a portion of Social Security benefits, some members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have proposed scaling it back. These proposed changes would reduce Social Security revenues, worsening the programs long-run financial shortfall and requiring additional tax increases or benefit cuts to restore long-run solvency. In addition, they would make the system of Social Security benefits and taxes less progressive.

Former Rep. Sam Johnson, who chaired the Social Security Subcommittee when Republicans controlled the House, proposed scaling back the taxation of benefits as part of a bill to restore Social Security solvency by cutting scheduled benefits. Johnsons bill would have phased out the portion of the taxation of benefits that is credited to the Social Security trust funds. That provision would have increased Social Securitys 75-year shortfall by 17 percent , according to the Social Security actuary.

What Happens If I Work And Get Social Security Retirement Benefits

You can get Social Security retirement benefits and work at the same time. However, if you are younger than full retirement age and make more than the yearly earnings limit, we will reduce your benefit. Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, we will not reduce your benefits no matter how much you earn.

• We use the following earnings limits to reduce your benefits: If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, we deduct $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit.

For 2022 that limit is $19,560.

• In the year you reach full retirement age, we deduct $1 in benefits for every $3 you earn above a different limit, but we only count earnings before the month you reach your full retirement age.

If you will reach full retirement age in 2022, the limit on your earnings for the months before full retirement age is $51,960.

Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, you can get your benefits with no limit on your earnings.

Use our Retirement Age Calculator to find your full retirement age based on your date of birth.

Use our Retirement Earnings Test Calculator to find out how much your benefits will be reduced.

What counts as earnings:

Your benefits may increase when you work:

When youre ready to apply for retirement benefits, use our online retirement application, the quickest, easiest, and most convenient way to apply.

If you need to report a change in your earnings after you begin receiving benefits:

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How Will I Know That I Have To Pay

The Social Security Administration will send a benefit statement each year in January to beneficiaries called Form SSA-1099. This form shows the total amount of benefits you received from Social Security in the previous year. With it, you will be able to complete your federal income tax return to find out if your benefits are subject to tax.

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Does Social Security Income Count As Income

Yes, but you can minimize the amount you owe each year by making wise moves before and after you retire. Consider investing some of your retirement savings in a Roth account to shield your withdrawals from income tax. Take out some retirement money after youre 59½, but before you retire to pay for expected taxes on your Social Security before you begin receiving benefit payments. You might also talk to a financial planner about a retirement annuity.

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How Do I Determine If My Social Security Is Taxable

Add up your gross income for the year, including Social Security. If you have little or no income besides your Social Security, you wont owe taxes on it. However, if youre an individual filer with at least $25,000 in gross income, including Social Security for the year, then up to 50% of your Social Security benefits may be taxable. For a couple filing jointly, the minimum is $32,000. If your gross income is $34,000 or more , then up to 85% may be taxable.

Taxation Of Benefits Is Progressive

Taxes on Social Security benefits fall more heavily on high-income than low-income taxpayers. Thats both because a larger share of benefits is taxable for high-income taxpayers and because they face higher marginal income tax rates.

About half of Social Security beneficiaries pay no tax on their benefits because their incomes are below $25,000 , according to the Congressional Budget Office . At the other end of the income spectrum, a small number of high-income taxpayers pay as much as 31 percent of their benefits in taxes. Thats equal to the top marginal income tax rate of 37 percent applied to 85 percent of their benefits.

On average, beneficiaries pay about 7 percent of their benefits in income taxes. Beneficiaries with incomes below $40,000 owe less than 0.5 percent of their benefits in taxes, CBO estimates. In contrast, beneficiaries with incomes over $100,000 owe about 21 percent .

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Federal Taxation Of Social Security Benefits And Effect On Vermont

At the federal level, the personal income of a Social Security beneficiary determines how much of the Social Security benefits are taxed. This taxable portion of Social Security benefits may become part of a Vermonters Adjusted Gross Income at the federal level. Federal AGI flows through to Vermont and becomes the starting point for determining Vermont taxable income.

The Vermont exemption allows income-eligible taxpayers to subtract all or part of federally taxable Social Security benefits from their AGI. This means that the federally taxable portion of Social Security benefits is eliminated or reduced for Vermont income-eligible taxpayers receiving Social Security benefits.

For a breakdown of the federal taxation of Social Security benefits, see the table below. For more on federal taxation of Social Security benefits, please read this overview by the Social Security Administration.

Withdraw Taxable Income Before Retirement

Another way to minimize your taxable income when drawing Social Security is to maximize, or at least increase, your taxable income in the years before you begin to receive benefits.

You could be in your peak earning years between ages 59½ and retirement age. Take a chunk of money out of your retirement account and pay the taxes on it. Then, you can use it later without pushing up your taxable income.

This means you could withdraw funds a little earlyor take distributions, in tax jargonfrom your tax-sheltered retirement accounts, such as IRAs and 401s. You can make penalty-free distributions after age 59½. This means you avoid being dinged for making these withdrawals too early, but you must still pay income tax on the amount you withdraw.

Since the withdrawals are taxable , they must be planned carefully with an eye on the other taxes you will pay that year. The goal is to pay less tax by making more withdrawals during this preSocial Security period than you would after you begin to draw benefits. That requires considering the total tax bite from withdrawals, Social Security benefits, and other sources. Be mindful, too, that at age 72, youre required to take RMDs from these accounts, so you need to plan for those mandatory withdrawals.

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When Does A Retiree’s Income Trigger Taxes

Retirees who are still working likely have at least two streams of income: Social Security benefits and a paycheck from a job. The Social Security benefits you receive can be taxable if 50% of your benefits, plus all of your other income, is greater than the specific limits for your filing status. These amounts are as follows:

• Single filers, qualifying widowers and heads of households bringing in more than $25,000, based on the math above, may have to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits.

• A married couple filing jointly bringing in more than $32,000, based on the math above, may have to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits.

With that, the benefits you receive may or may not be taxable based on your other income. For example, let’s say that you are a single filer that received $20,000 in Social Security benefits. Additionally, you earned $20,000 at a part-time job. When you run the numbers, 50% of your benefits plus your other income would be $30,000. With that, Uncle Sam would require you to pay federal taxes on a portion of your Social Security benefits.

As another example, let’s say a receives Social Security benefits of $20,000. You also bring in $20,000 through other sources. With that, 50% of your benefits plus your other income would be $30,000. That’s less than the base amount for married couples filing jointly. So, you wouldn’t have to pay federal income tax on any of your Social Security benefits.

Are Social Security Benefits Taxed After Age 66

Are Social Security benefits taxable regardless of age? Yes.The rules for taxing benefits do not change as a person gets older. Whether or not your Social Security payments are taxed is determined by your income level specifically, what the Internal Revenue Service calls your provisional income.

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You May Have To Pay Taxes On Your Social Security Benefits

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You’ve reached the age when you can begin collecting Social Security. When tax time rolls around, you may be wondering if you have to pay income tax on your Social Security benefits. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. Your tax liability depends on other details about your situation. Social Security benefits might be either non-taxable or partially taxable.

Learn the factors that determine whether or not you’ll owe taxes on your Social Security benefits.

How Federal Taxes On Social Security Are Calculated

Once you start collecting Social Security benefits, you’ll get a Social Security benefits statement in the mail each year in January showing the total amount of benefits you received in the previous year. To figure out how much, if any, of the total amount may be taxed, the first thing you need to do is calculate your “provisional income.” Your provisional income is generally equal to the combined total of 50% of your Social Security benefits, your tax-exempt interest, and the other non-Social Security items that make up your adjusted gross income .

For single people, your Social Security benefits aren’t taxed if your provisional income is less than $25,000. The threshold is $32,000 if you’re married and filing a joint return. If your provisional income is between $25,000 and $34,000 for a single filer, or from $32,000 to $44,000 for a joint filer, then up to 50% of your Social Security benefits may be taxable. If your provisional income is more than $34,000 on a single return, or $44,000 on a joint return, up to 85% of your benefits may be taxable.

The IRS has a handy calculator that can help you determine whether any of your Social Security benefits are taxable and, if so, how much. Once you know how much is taxable, that amount is included on Line 6b of Form 1040 and becomes part of your taxable income. That income is then taxed with other income according to your tax bracket.

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