{"id":26372,"date":"2015-08-29T08:03:30","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T12:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26372"},"modified":"2015-08-29T08:03:30","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T12:03:30","slug":"how-the-tax-code-impacts-senior-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26372","title":{"rendered":"How The Tax Code Impacts Senior Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

After everything we hear about income inequality<\/a> and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, it is rather amazing that no one has pointed out the higher rate of taxes paid by senior citizens<\/a>. This is particularly amazing because senior citizens vote in large numbers. There is an organization called AMAC (Association for Mature American<\/a> Citizens) which is basically AARP<\/a> for conservatives that has looked at the tax code<\/a> in relation to senior citizens and posted an article<\/a>. At this point I need to mention that I am a member of both AMAC and the AARP. One of those memberships is free to me, one I pay for.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

The top 1% of income earners nationally (millionaires & billionaires) pay on average a federal tax rate of 22% yearly. Compare that with the rate paid by most seniors receiving Social Security<\/a> benefits and currently earning over $32,000.00 each year who are forced to pay a tax rate of up to 28%. At the $42,000.00 yearly income level (hardly considered wealthy,) 85% of Social Security Benefits become taxable up to a 28% rate. Seriously, a higher tax rate (28%) for a $42,000 yearly income compared to a 22% average rate<\/a> for million dollar wage earners? \u201cThis \u201cage penalty\u201d is blatantly unfair, confiscatory, and betrays those who are self-reliant, did the right thing, and saved for their future retirement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The arbitrary mandatory minimum distribution (forced withdrawal up to 4% of all savings, IRA<\/a>\u2019s and annuities) every year after the age of 70.5 is clearly and simply unfair age discrimination on the part of the IRS<\/a> and Congress. Forcing seniors to withdraw up to 4% of their savings each year (also taxed at a higher rate and increasing their total income) is punitive and creates a \u201cdouble jeopardy\u201d tax penalty not faced by younger tax payers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another, even more egregious, travesty cooked into the IRS tax code allows the federal government to pilfer the financial assets of seniors upon the death of their spouse. The surviving spouse must deal, not only, with the emotional loss but also must surrender most or all of the Social Security benefits of their deceased husband or wife. To add further injury, standard deduction<\/a> and personal exemptions ($10,300) of their spouse are also lost, resulting in a higher income tax rate on less income.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The result of all of this is that seniors are financing a disproportionate amount of federal spending. The current presidential campaign provides seniors with the opportunity to demand that those seeking the office explain how they will remedy this government sanctioned \u201csenior abuse.\u201d It\u2019s time to lift the heavy hand of government, reform this unfair depletion of senior American\u2019s assets, allow them to reap the benefits of their retirement planning, give seniors a fair shake, and revitalize the American dream.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It might also be relevant to mention that the majority of senior citizens’ income (with the exception of IRA’s) has already been taxed at least once. Stock dividends, for instance, have been taxed at least once before people receive them (through corporate taxes). Also, just for the record, I am not in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy–they already pay more than their fair share. (In 2013, CNBC<\/a> reported “the top 40 percent of wage earners in America pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent…pay negative 9 percent<\/a>.”)\u00a0 I am, however, in favor of raising taxes on lower income people so that they begin to take an interest in changing the tax code. The American tax code is a tribute to special interests–it is time to change that.<\/p>\n

The AMAC article was written by State Representative Charles \u201cDoc\u201d Anderson<\/a>, a veterinarian,\u00a0 who has represented \u00a0District 56 (Waco<\/a> and McLennan County<\/a>) in the Texas House of Representatives<\/a> since 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After everything we hear about income inequality and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, it is rather amazing that no one has pointed out the higher rate of taxes paid by senior citizens. This is particularly amazing because senior citizens … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4083,9375,50,9374,9373],"class_list":["post-26372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aarp","tag-amac","tag-economic-inequality","tag-senior-citizen","tag-senior-citizens-tax-burden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26375,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26372\/revisions\/26375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}