Got an Email from Social Security today.

[Wiz Imp]

10. I apologize. I made an assumption and was wrong.

The main reason for my assumption is I don't understand how they determine how much of the tax collected is from the SS benefits. For example. Say I receive a pension that pays me $50,000 a year. That is 100% taxable. Say I also receive $10,000 in SS Benefits. Since my other income is over $34,000 (I'm filing as single), that would make my SS Benefits 85% taxable, So my adjusted gross income is $58,500 ($50,000 pension + $8500 SS Benefits). Say I take the standard deduction ($14,600 for 2024). I subtract that from my AGI to get $43,900 for my total taxable income. So I pay taxes on that amount. What percentage of those taxes are considered to be on the SS Benefits?

So the new bill gives an added deduction of $6,000 to those over 65. But since bill was not allowed to touch SS, then it seems to me that $6,000 would need to be subtracted from the other income and not the SS Benefits which are taxable, so that would mean it would have little or no impact on the taxes collected on SS Benefits going back to the SS Trust fund. It's all so needlessly complicated.