President Donald Trump’s tax reform bill is a great step forward, but it missed an important item.
In 1993 the Clinton administration increased the income tax on Social Security by 50 percent to 80 percent. They made the false claim that this would only affect the wealthiest taxpayers.
Tax on Social Security is double taxation. We already paid income tax on this money when they forced us to pay it into the system.
My wife and I are both retired living on small pensions and Social Security. I also have a small annuity that I rolled my 401(k) over into when I retired. If I don’t take anything out of the annuity, none of our Social Security is taxed and we pay an annual tax bill of $147 on our joint income. When we take $13,000 from the annuity to supplement our income, a portion of the Social Security gets taxed and our tax bill goes up to $2,940.
We are not in the group of the wealthiest taxpayers that was supposed to be affected; our total annual income with the supplement is under $50,000. It seems that we are being punished for having planned well for our retirement.
I am insulted when Social Security is referred to as an entitlement. It is not something we are being given; we paid into it our entire working lives, and we were forced under penalty of law to pay into it. Had I been allowed to invest the money the Social Security Administration took from us, I would have a lot more than the monthly Social Security check I get.
Kenneth Wilson, Lakeland