Posted on 05/16/2025 5:39:38 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
House Republicans’ “one, big, beautiful” tax bill includes a new temporary $4,000 deduction for older adults.
The change, called a “bonus” in the legislation, is aimed at helping retirees keep more money in their pockets and provides an alternative to the idea of eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, which President Donald Trump and other lawmakers have touted.
The temporary provision would apply to tax years 2025 through 2028. The deduction would start to phase out for single filers with more than $75,000 in modified adjusted gross income, and for married couples who file jointly with more than $150,000.
As a tax deduction, it would reduce the amount of seniors’ income that is subject to levies and therefore reduce the taxes they may owe. Notably, it is not as generous as a tax credit, which reduces income tax liability dollar for dollar.
A median income retiree who brings in up to about $50,000 annually may see their taxes cut by a little less than $500 per year with this change, noted Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
“It’s not nothing, but it’s also not life changing,” Gleckman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
The legalized theft orginally promoted, pushed forward and won by Senator Joe Biden continues on our seniors....whadda a bunch of gutless grifters.
It’s always about these scumbags giving people back their money instead of not taking it in the first place. Congress is disgusting. The whole friggen place should be term limited to 4 years with no pay.
They need your SS tax dollars to provide handouts to the voters they’re trying to buy.
President Trump is always putting out BHAGs — “Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”
Congress takes the usual approach of small, temporary tweaks to existing things. They are Lilliputians with no ability to reimagine or reinvent things for the better.
A BHAG is a huge, long-term target or goal that energizes an organization and focuses its people, rallying them to a common cause and leading them through a process of transformation.
The term was originally coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies,” first published in 1994.
Sounds like bullshit.
No. It’s not that they need the money for some specific.
It’s that they can’t afford to reduce tax revenue. Simply that and powerfully that. The financial situation is catastrophic. The maneuvers taking place are not discretionary. They are desperation.
A lot of things are going to have to be yanked out of the budget proposals to have any chance of passing, and when they’re yanked out it will be clear that no one’s agenda can compel mathematics.
Tax cuts are often temporary yet government programs last forever.
However I am grateful for any scraps the man will throw my way.
> Congress takes the usual approach of small, temporary tweaks to existing things. <
Right. And those tweaks are usually a confusing mess. “If line 23 is greater than the sum of lines 12 and 14b, then use table 34.”
That sort of thing.
This is a difficult position for certain of us Social Security recipients. I was one of those of whom had a reduction in Social Security payments, because of another specific restriction built into the code years ago. This restriction was removed by legislation a couple years ago, and became effective after Trump assumed office. To rectify past restrictions, a supplementary payment of the difference for the period from January 2024 to March 2025 was made to each of these individuals within the special class of recipients, amounting to several thousand dollars. This is now Social Security income, and will SWELL the amount of Social Security income subject to Federal taxation. Which means there will be a WHOPPING tax bill come due on April 15, 2026, on 2025 income.
The $4,000 “additional” deduction seems scarcely enough to make up this difference.
We were promised that Social Security would o longer be taxed. What happened to THAT?
How about . . . I don’t know, just eliminating the SS tax, period? We’ve been paying into the scheme for decades, and paying taxes on our regular income. Why get taxed yet again?
“The maneuvers taking place are not discretionary. They are desperation.”
I agree with you the financial situation is catastrophic. However, if it wasn’t for DOGE the GOP would be signing on to all of the USAID and other NGO grift funding the Democrat party and social justice organizations working to destroy the Republic.
The real test is not this “big beautiful bill”. The rubber hits the road in budget for fiscal 2026 beginning October 1. Will the GOP House develop a budget with meaningful cuts of wasteful departments, headcount, and spending or will it be business as usual with a huge omnibus spending bill of thousands of pages and incredible amounts of waste?
-——yet government programs last forever.-——
Doge is the remedy in process for changing the fact you mentioned
So I’m told
BS no one should have to pay a penny in taxes on social security
Exactly. Even the phase-out description in the article is already a dog’s breakfast mess.
Yes, we reached the point of no return when our National Debt passed our GDP.
Unfortunately this occurred during Trump's first term, he should have told Mitch no.
Guys, stop thinking as if there’s any rationale beyond desperation. Tax policy does not need to make sense. It needs to pay the bills. It’s not doing that. We borrow 2 trillion dollars per year. That’s not coming down unless you do away with considerations of fairness and making sense.
It is a matter of mathematical priority. Fairness and making sense are about the lowest priority in comparison to the math.
Social Security benefits get taxed?
When you feel the tongue in the ear look out.
this miserable (and miserly) proposal is patent illustration why the federal income tax needs to be eliminated, period.
we don’t want your magnanimous charity or “bonuses”.. we want you to stop stealing our money in the first place
it is nearly as much a matter of congressional attitude as it is their actual thievery
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