‘Seniors should not pay tax on Social Security,’ the former president said, debuting the policy proposal for the first time.
Former President Donald Trump this week debuted the idea of seniors not having to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits, as he seeks to secure more voters with fewer than 100 days left before the November election.
“Seniors should not pay tax on Social Security,” the Republican presidential nominee
wrote in an all-capitalized message on his Truth Social on Wednesday. That same day, he repeated that statement during a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, adding that “they won’t” pay such a tax if he is elected later this year.
“No tax on Social Security for seniors, no tax on tips,” he also
wrote on Thursday evening on his social media site.
Taxes on Social Security payments date back to the early 1980s, when then-President Ronald Reagan signed a measure into law that was designed to ensure the solvency of the program’s trust fund.
According to the Social Security Administration website, some 40 percent of Americans who receive Social Security payments have to pay federal income taxes on those benefits. It notably occurs if the person has “other substantial income” on top of their monthly benefits, including wages as well as earnings from interest, dividends, self-employment, and other taxable income that has to be submitted to the IRS on their tax returns, according to the agency.
Under the current federal law, retired individuals who earn less than $25,000 per year, or $32,000 for married couples, pay no taxes on their Social Security payments.
If the amount goes higher than that, 50 percent of Social Security payments are subject to income tax under the law. The tax revenue then goes toward the Social Security retirement trust fund, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which describes itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
For seniors who earn more than $34,000 per year, or $44,000 for married couples, another 35 percent of benefits are taxable, according to the group. That revenue goes toward the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund.
It’s the first time Trump has suggested no taxes on Social Security payments, although he said earlier this year during a Nevada rally that there should be no taxes on tips as he made a pitch toward service workers in the Silver State. His comments and posts this week have provided no further details on how a plan to eliminate the Social Security tax would be implemented.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
said in a July 31 statement that removing taxes on Social Security without a “replacement source” of funding could increase deficits by $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion through 2035. Other issues that the plan could cause include increasing Social Security’s 75-year shortfall by 25 percent, increasing the insolvency date of Social Security’s retirement trust fund by more than one year, and increasing the insolvency date of the Medicare trust fund by six years, it said.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has said that Republicans should not make proposals to cut Social Security or Medicare. He also suggested he was open to entitlement reform
during a CNBC segment earlier this year, after which his campaign issued a statement clarifying his comments.
Earlier this month, the Republican Party approved its policy platform, which rules out cutting Medicare and Social Security. It also ruled out any proposed lifting of the retirement age, which had been floated by former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
AARP, a senior advocacy group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, has backed prior proposals to end taxes on Social Security payments. In February, when a similar measure was passed in West Virginia’s Legislature, the organization
said that putting taxes on Social Security “undermines the purpose” of the payments, adding that it was a “program that was designed to lift seniors out of poverty” and not a program “designed to fund state governments.”
