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Your combined income was $49,000 ($40,000 from your savings and half of the $18,000 you got from Social Security). You owed taxes taxes on 85 percent of your $18,000 in annual benefits, or $15,300, at the regular rate for your tax bracket. Nobody pays taxes on more than 85 percent of their Social Security benefits, no matter their income.
One of the enduring myths about Social Security is that benefit payments are not subject to federal income taxes. This was true from the program’s inception in the 1930s until Congress overhauled its financing in the 1980s, but for 40 years now, some portion of Social Security income has been taxable for some beneficiaries.
First, Social Security adjusts your earnings for historical changes in U.S. wages, takes your 35 best-paid years and produces what it calls your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). Only income up to the maximum taxable earnings — the annually adjusted cap on how much of your earnings are subject to Social Security taxes — is counted ...
Loading up taxable investment accounts with assets that generate lots of income, such as real estate investment trusts, dividend-paying stocks or most types of bonds, can increase the tax hit on your Social Security benefits. An alternative strategy might be putting income-generating investments into tax-deferred accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s.
As of December 2023, about 2.1 million Social Security recipients were covered by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), a rule that can reduce retirement benefits or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments for people who: Collect a pension from a job in which they did not pay Social Security taxes.
People whose earnings equaled or exceeded Social Security’s maximum taxable income — the amount of your earnings on which you pay Social Security taxes — for at least 35 years of their working lives. The maximum taxable income in 2024 is $168,600.
Social Security administers the program, but money from the U.S. Treasury, not your Social Security taxes, pays for it. Federal SSI payments in 2024 max out at $943 a month for an individual and $1,415 for a married couple when both spouses are eligible. Those benefits are not subject to income tax.
According to the IRS tax tables, a person with taxable income of $50,000 would owe $6,053 in federal income taxes, or 12.1 percent of their taxable income. You may notice we’re talking about taxable income above.
In other words, if your income exceeds the cap on yearly earnings — which in 2024 is $22,320 for people who claim benefits before full retirement age — Social Security will withhold money from your retirement payments. (Full retirement age is 66 and 6 months for people born in 1957, 66 and 8 months for those born in 1958, and is gradually ...
Provisional income is adjusted gross income (line 11 on your 1040 tax form) plus tax-exempt interest income plus 50 percent of your Social Security payments. If those add up to more than $25,000 for an individual or $32,000 or a married couple filing jointly, you pay federal taxes on a portion of your benefits, regardless of your age.