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An Update on the “You Earned It, You Keep It Act”
H.R. 7084, titled the “You Earned It, You Keep It Act” was introduced in late January of this year by Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn) and has accumulated 10 cosponsors at this point. It’s primary objective is the elimination of federal income tax on Social Security benefits, funded by a change in the maximum taxable earnings limits. The current cap on earnings subject to payroll tax would be tiered, with the first tier being the current taxable limit of $168,600 remaining, while earnings from $168,601 to $249,999 being untaxed. The payroll tax would resume at $250,000 and would be applied to all earnings beyond that point.
No action has been taken on the bill since its submission, and govtrack.us gives it a 0% chance of enactment, but it’s worthy of note that if enacted the bill is projected to provide about two decades of breathing room for the point of Social Security insolvency.
Taxing Social Security benefits is a frequently recurring item in discussions on the program’s need for reform. Since the thresholds for taxation are not indexed to compensate for rising income, more and more seniors face the prospect of paying federal income tax on their earned benefits. As a result, what was once only intended to affect a few high-income taxpayers has evolved to hurt more than half of retired taxpayers.
U.S. News and World Report contributor Maryalene LaPonsie summarizes the bill in a post on their website, which you can access here.
So $168,000 is the current cap. Most middle class working people make way less that $168,00. So they pay 6.4% on 100% of their income. But high earners those that make over $168,000 pay no more social security taxes. Thus getting a 6.4% raise. Confess wants to keep kicking the can down the road until it’s too late. They don’t want to break their promise of not raising taxes. Give me a break. This has been the least productive congress in our nation’s history.
Tax the rich and feed the poor. Of course this bill will help millions who need it. And tax the rich. This bill has 0% it will pass.
Senior citizens need relief from this high inflation now. It is long past time to stop taxing seniors on their Social Security. The threshold of 25k of total income has not been increased since 1993 and no senior could possibly survive in 2024 on 25k. This unfair tX particularly burdens senior women, who are statistically more likely to be single as they age. Stop taxing seniors on their Social Security now.
Mary:
We are in complete agreement with your concern. In fact, our advocacy subsidiary (AMAC Action) most recently joined in support of Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act, H.R. 3206, an Act that seeks to help millions of seniors nationwide by excluding tier I railroad retirement benefits and Social Security benefits when calculating annual gross income. Further, in our Social Security Guarantee legislative proposal, which you can view on the AMAC.us website (https://amac.us/social-security-guarantee-2/), we also include a proposal to either eliminate the taxation completely or adjust the thresholds to account for inflation realized since they were put into place decades ago.
Thank you for contacting us and for sharing your concerns.
Gerry Hafer
AMAC Foundation
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