I love the idea of my Social Security not being taxed. Before 1984 Social Security payments were not taxed. The law that taxed Social Security benefits allowed 50% of benefits to be taxable for individuals with income above certain thresholds [income above $25,000 (single) or $32,000 (couple)]. In 1993, the taxation level was increased to 85% for higher-income beneficiaries [$34,000 (single) or $44,000 (couple)].  In today’s dollars, $44,000 is about $98,000.00. These totals were not indexed for inflation. This is another example of the government using inflation to increase its tax revenue as Americans struggle to pay for things.

The Big Beautiful Bill did not directly end the tax on Social Security. What it did do was to increase the standard deduction for Americans over the age of 65. This not only avoids a mess of paperwork, but will automatically provide more benefit to low-income Americans. The downside is that the more people who don’t have to pay taxes, the fewer people care if taxes are raised. Everyone needs skin in the game.

This is a chart of the changes made by the Big Beautiful Bill:

Changing the tax laws in this manner will save a lot of people a lot of paperwork (and receipt searching) and make it easier for people over the age of 65 to file their income taxes. I pray for the day that the tax form is a postcard-size piece of paper that takes five minutes to fill out. Our tax code is a tribute to the power of lobbyists, and that needs to change. Let’s go to a flat tax or a national sales tax. What we have no is expensive in both time and money.