Just did a preliminary tax return for 2018.

[llmart]

I retired January 2018. No "wages" so to speak. I live on what I consider to be very little money. I have two small pensions and Social Security. I know we're not supposed to just think about ourselves with regards to what's right or wrong, but dammit. Pensions and Social Security should NOT be taxed at all!

So, call me selfish, but why can't we get Dem congresspeople to change this?

Also, if your gross income is $13,600 or less then you don't have to file a return unless you have had taxes withheld and want to get them back. Who the heck can live on $13,600 gross income?

These scenarios are for single people 65 or older.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. 401 K under a certain amount should not be taxable

capital gain under a certain amount for one time folks who are not wealthy etc

This is why a 70% tax bracket is a good idea, at the top, but until there is a will for it...dangerous.

Paying taxes on SS is absurd, yes.

[Dave in VA]

2. My 89 year old mother

is a widow and lives on my father's social security. Surviving spouse only gets half. It is less than 13,000/yr.

[llmart]

4. Yes, you have to figure your tax on Social Security on gross, not net.

which is another rip off. They take $129 a month out of your gross for Medicare and it's not like that's an option. My gross SS is only a little more than $13K gross, but I only take home a little over $11K.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. THIS

My mom was also a widow and would have been the same age this year getting survivor's federal government annuity and SS (offset). And and as a survivor, it was set to at 55%.... But at least she did get that.

[gay texan]

13. I seem to remember my Grandmother

Raising hell about this. Didn't this come about during the Reagan administration?

[BumRushDaShow]

15. As far as I know, at least for feds

"survivors" (spouse and dependents) received 55% of what the deceased fed's retirement (CSRS) pay would have been and in our case, our family had started collecting it well before Raygun was elected.

HOWEVER, Raygun eventually signed off on changes to civil service that implemented a new retirement system (FERS) and also signed off on what was called the "Windfall Elimination Provision" (WEP), which removed the ability for people to collect both a full retirement (or survivor's) annuity AND a full Social Security payment, despite being eligible to do so. They considered it "double-dipping". I.e., My mother actually had 40 quarters herself before becoming a stay-at-home parent but when it came time to apply at 62 as a widow, she had been advised to apply for my father's SS (which would have been a higher amount than if she claimed her own and despite being a fed, he actually had enough quarters from other positions to be eligible for it since feds did not participate in SS back then) BUT she would still only receive an "offset" amount of the annuity at that point, regardless.

I.e., the annuity + SS amount would have to total to be the "55%" vs getting 55% of each and then totaling.

That will sortof be my case now that I am retired. I am under CSRS offset meaning that until age 62, I get my full retirement annuity but then after that, my annuity will suddenly drop and I will have to apply to receive SS, where my total annuity + total SS would be comparable to my pre-age 62 annuity alone, but now split between 2 payments (not counting any COLA increases).

The other thing Raygun signed was to drop SS survivor's payments to children older than 16 (it was previously permitted for children up to age 18, and if the child was in college full time, up to age 22). That directly impacted us because although me and my sister under me squeaked under the wire, my youngest sister was impacted.

Here's some info on that WEP thing - http://time.com/money/3825519/social-security-benefit-wep-cut/

[dhol82]

3. Thank you Ronald Reagan.

[llmart]

7. Yep.

We're old enough to remember that too. I have said many times that he was disastrous. I could never understand why so many people, even Dems voted for him. I can assure you I didn't.

[dhol82]

14. Nor did I.

He was a poseur. Could stand up and look good. That was about it.
Destroyed a lot during his eight years.
Still don’t understand how he remains Saint Ronnie to the unwashed masses.

[still_one]

5. I believe for single if you income is between 25K to 34K or 32K to 44K on joint return, you social

security benefits may be taxable.

This was implemented under the Regan administration

[Hortensis]

8. At least universal basic income is coming. WHEN Democrats have

the power to make it happen. That's because we're an extremely wealthy, advanced nation, and thus can, and because millions are going to be without jobs during this technical transition, and thus need to.

At that time all the social programs will be revisited. How well they are redone will depend on how much power the Republican wealth-serving party has to limit what's accomplished. Exactly like when Social Security and the ACA also were instituted and changed afterward. Vote Democrat and bed any grandchildren to do so also is all I can say.

Hillary almost ran on UBI for 2016 (when she expected to have a Democratic senate, and even perhaps house) but felt we needed to address other stuff first and couldn't make the numbers work. But that's how close it is -- WHEN we have government that believes its duty is to serve ALL the people, not a wealthy ruling class who feel those not working are disposable.

During the transition, some will do much better of course and likely, in the nature of things, some not quite as well. But for many millions of younger people the future can be planned for by saving on top of the UBI checks that provide the same degree of modest security Social Security does now for older people.

Btw, SS is taxed at the receiving end (at different rates depending on income and a long list of factors) because part of the money paid in wasn't taxed before. No free rides is the rationale.

[llmart]

9. I'm all for universal basic income.

I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime, but I'm still for it. We are an aging population and each year, more and more baby boomers are retiring by choice or having to retire and it's going to be a real shock for many of them.

I say cut the defense budget and tax the wealthy and guarantee a basic living income and the whole country would be better off. So much taxpayer money is wasted on defense contractors and companies.

[Hortensis]

12. :) Are you expecting to die before 2024? Massive un/under-employment

is the future and will force change that should already be well under way. Our new, hard-core conservative/libertarian plutocrats hope to meet this problem through decline of unemployed citizens into helpless, impoverished death. We have 200 million registered voters, though, who won't accept that, sso you should expect to see big change.

Unless by using the Republicans they were to succeed in oversetting democracy and instituting an authoritarian state, of course. No voting power, no power. These days most people in red states could be brought to their knees just by shutting off their water. That's an unlikely worst case, naturally.

It's extremely unfortunate that our nation (and planet) entered a conservative period just when technology started promising the end to most skilled trades -- and signaled a need for such massive retraining that big progressive approaches were necessary. Back in the 1980s I remember a cabinet official explaining that all Americans would have to retrain an average of 5 times in their working lives. But newly conservative governments purged of liberal majorities (by electorates turned conservative!) eliminated programs to work with business, colleges, and employees to make it happen as needed and also made retraining increasingly prohibitively expensive for literally most of those who needed it most.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

11. Roth IRAs.

We had a large chunk of our investments in a Roth IRA. We paid the Income taxes on that for the one-time deal to have that all be Tax Free as it continues to build. We have other investments that are taxed if we exceed the amount withdrawn. My husband has retirements from IBM, Dep. of Defense after 23 years, a local Manufacturing company after 10 years, Social Security.

He works part-time at Costco because he enjoys it. I run my Alterations/Custom Period Clothing business from home. We pay taxes still on all of that.

[LakeSuperiorView]

16. I've been unemployed for 2018. Just over $8000 in unemployment as income, plus election judge wages

Burning through savings and my sister finally paid me back for the money she has owed me for 20 years. Fortunately, I paid off my mortgage last year. $800 some withheld as taxes, no health insurance. I don't know what the tax picture is going to be yet, but I'm not looking forward doing taxes.

I'm still above water, but the boat is leaking... Getting to the point where any job sounds good.