I just received my first Social Security retirement benefit (payment)

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Unless the entire enterprise goes bankrupt. Then nobody's getting anything, promises or not.
And that day is coming, sadly.
I believe Congress will raise the age to receive retirement benefits to 70 (that's when I started taking my check) -- applying to persons under 50. Also, Congress has to raise the upper limit of income to be taxed to around 300,000 or so. Those 2 changes make SS whole from what I understand.
 
I believe Congress will raise the age to receive retirement benefits to 70 (that's when I started taking my check) -- applying to persons under 50. Also, Congress has to raise the upper limit of income to be taxed to around 300,000 or so. Those 2 changes make SS whole from what I understand.
If the federal government had managed the SS trust fund ethically (defined as "in a diversified manner"), yes.
But that understanding is based on the assumption that the federal will remain solvent.
If the federal government itself goes bankrupt (defined as so burdened with existing debt in other areas that those with money to invest will stop buying treasuries and simply invest elsewhere), you and I are going to get a letter that says, "Look, we're sorry. We know we told you that SS was your money and that we would be there with your SS and with Medicare, but when we went to the SS lock box, all we found was a bunch of IOUs. Sorry, but you are on your own."
 
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I believe Congress will raise the age to receive retirement benefits to 70 (that's when I started taking my check) -- applying to persons under 50. Also, Congress has to raise the upper limit of income to be taxed to around 300,000 or so. Those 2 changes make SS whole from what I understand.
The latter part, I agree with, although it would hurt me. In fact, I still pay a substantial amount in self-employment tax, which until recently didn't increase my benefits a penny. I look for the ceiling to increase and also the age to move up incrementally, with increased bennys for delaying. A step process...
 
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The latter part, I agree with, although it would hurt me. In fact, I still pay a substantial amount in self-employment tax, which until recently didn't increase my benefits a penny. I look for the ceiling to increase and also the age to move up incrementally, with increased bennys for delaying. A step process...
I’m on record in another thread advocating a phased increase in the age for full benefits. We can debate the exact schedule, but it would be something like: If you’re 50 today, your full benefit date is now age 70. If you’re 51 today, it’s 69 years, 11 months. If you’re 52, it’s 69 y, 10 m. And so forth.

We can debate the exact schedule, but the idea would be a gradual implementation. And we’ve done this before…we actually did something similar a while back when the age for full benefits was raised from 65 to 67.

This would have the obvious benefits of simultaneously (1) deferring disbursements and (2) reducing the number of years over which benefits would be paid. It would also have the temporary benefit during the phase-in of people continuing to pay into the Trust Fund, but receiving benefits at a later date than they otherwise would.

And yes, you’d also probably have to raise the minimum filing age to 65 — parallel to a similar move when the full benefit age was raised to 67.

I’d also remove the cap on SSI contributions altogether.

The public would perceive it as “putting the screws to the rich guy,” which would generate a lot of appeal. But it would also raise some uncomfortable questions.

As in, would those who contributed more because of the removed (or increased) cap also receive more in benefits? If not, other than a “forget the rich people…they don’t need the money, therefore they get no extra benefits,” what’s the justification?

I know there are people with high compensation that pay little or no income tax, but they’re the great exception. Higher income levels pay the significant majority of total federal income tax receipts, and there’s a huge portion of the population that pays none at all. So high-income people would pay most of the IRS’s actual receipts and effectively subsidize the Trust Fund with no benefit to themselves? Not exactly the principles on which the economy was founded.

Also, I think you’d see a lot of highly compensated people shift income into forms that aren’t subject to SSI withholding. If you remove the cap (my suggestion), as opposed to raising it, you’d see more of that.

My feeling is that the net would still be more money for the Trust Fund, though I can’t prove that with hard data — that’s because it hasn’t been done before, therefore, there is no hard data to be had.

Of a lot of long-term fiscal problems we face, I do think the SS issue is the most easily fixed. It will not come without some hard choices.
 
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I support lifting or even eliminating the cap on contributions. You’d think that would sell to the lower and middle class that would never pay an extra penny under this plan.

“Hey, you worried Social Security won’t be there for you? Look at these millionaires who don’t contribute much more than you do”.

A gradual lifting of the age restrictions would help as well.

I’m 56 (my wife is 60) so I don’t know if I should worry or not.
 
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I believe Congress will raise the age to receive retirement benefits to 70 (that's when I started taking my check) -- applying to persons under 50. Also, Congress has to raise the upper limit of income to be taxed to around 300,000 or so. Those 2 changes make SS whole from what I understand.
I think those two changes would make the SS solvent. I have little confidence that Congress would respect the wall between SS and other budget lines if the need became urgent.
The mandatory spending portion of the budget for FY 22 is $4.1 trillion. The discretionary portion was $1.7 trillion. Interest on the debt was $475 billion, but a lot of that debt was borrowed at lower interests we have had for the last 25 years and when refinanced will now be borrowed at 7.5%, so even if we were adding nothing to the debt, servicing existing debt is going to cost a lot more.
In a crisis, Congress would blow past that firewall between SS and discretionary spending in a heartbeat.
 
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This is federal income tax, not payments into SSI. But it does illustrate that the highest income earners already (1) account for the significant majority of federal income tax receipts, and (2) pay taxes significantly out of proportion to their share of the income.

This particular study was published in January of 2023 and covers the tax year 2020. Over time, I've seen several similar ones covering previous years, and while the exact percentage breakouts vary a bit, the gist of all is the same -- the high earners do in fact pay a lot of the freight for the country as a whole.

Who Pays Federal Income Taxes? | IRS Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 (taxfoundation.org)

For example, the much-villified 1% account for about 22% of overall income, but pay about 42% of federal tax receipts. If you ratchet that down to the top 5%, they account for about 38% of all income, but about 63% of all income tax receipts.

Half of all taxpayers account for about 2% of receipts.

Yeah, I know the stories about people with nine-figure incomes paying no tax are out there. Some of them might even be true. But they're by far the exception. Taken as a whole, high earners more than carry their weight.

Point being, contrary to what politicians and the talking heads would have you believe, you can't just put the screws to the high earners. There simply aren't enough of them to bail out the finances of a 350 million population. We're all going to have to bear some of the burden.
 
This is federal income tax, not payments into SSI. But it does illustrate that the highest income earners already (1) account for the significant majority of federal income tax receipts, and (2) pay taxes significantly out of proportion to their share of the income.

This particular study was published in January of 2023 and covers the tax year 2020. Over time, I've seen several similar ones covering previous years, and while the exact percentage breakouts vary a bit, the gist of all is the same -- the high earners do in fact pay a lot of the freight for the country as a whole.

Who Pays Federal Income Taxes? | IRS Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 (taxfoundation.org)

For example, the much-villified 1% account for about 22% of overall income, but pay about 42% of federal tax receipts. If you ratchet that down to the top 5%, they account for about 38% of all income, but about 63% of all income tax receipts.

Half of all taxpayers account for about 2% of receipts.

Yeah, I know the stories about people with nine-figure incomes paying no tax are out there. Some of them might even be true. But they're by far the exception. Taken as a whole, high earners more than carry their weight.

Point being, contrary to what politicians and the talking heads would have you believe, you can't just put the screws to the high earners. There simply aren't enough of them to bail out the finances of a 350 million population. We're all going to have to bear some of the burden.
This author, a tax lawyer, disagrees.

 
This author, a tax lawyer, disagrees.

The author uses some of his own first sentence quoting Mark Twain.

The federal government doesn't tax assets (property taxes, car taxes, etc. are state and local). It taxes income. So the fact that some billionaires -- a measure of assets, not income -- pay a lower tax rate on income than others is irrelevant to the assertion that they pay a bigger percentage of the dollars collected in federal income tax.

The author (Bob Lord) didn't dispute any of the facts cited in the linked article. And he doesn't back up his claim that the 2020 data was, "cherry-picked." He just says that it appears to have been the case.

Turns out, not so much.

Here's another article, from a different source, showing the breakout for historical years. Starts out with 2020 -- same numbers as the link in my post above. But scroll down a bit over halfway through and it shows 2017, 2018, and 2019. 2020 is slightly higher. But the previous 3 years, all pre-pandemic, weren't much lower. At all.

The same chart also shows 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Note how the percentage of federal income tax receipts paid by the top 1% and top 5% has roughly doubled.

Who Pays Income Taxes? - Foundation - National Taxpayers Union (ntu.org)

Then Lord drags state and local taxes and income inequality (which he conveniently doesn't define) into his attempt to discredit an article that doesn't even pretend to address either.

The article I linked in my original post, and the article linked in this one, describe what actually is and has been in recent years.

Bob Lord doesn't like the current setup and is arguing what he thinks it should be.

Lies, damned lies and statistics indeed.
 
The income tax was designed to be progressive from the start.

And it isn't progressive enough curently.
This is not an argument one way or the other, but it is one my favorite statistics from US history: the highest marginal income tax rate in US history was 100%.
FDR executive order 9250 October 1942.

"No salary shall be authorized under Title III, Section 4, to the extent that it exceeds $25,000 after the payment of taxes allocable to the sum in excess of $25,000."
 
This is not an argument one way or the other, but it is one my favorite statistics from US history: the highest marginal income tax rate in US history was 100%.
FDR executive order 9250 October 1942.

"No salary shall be authorized under Title III, Section 4, to the extent that it exceeds $25,000 after the payment of taxes allocable to the sum in excess of $25,000."

While I find that excessive, historically tax rates were much higher for those with higher incomes.

Not only that, but of course now the very rich structure income in ways that it is not taxed or is taxed at lower rates.
 
While I find that excessive, historically tax rates were much higher for those with higher incomes.

Not only that, but of course now the very rich structure income in ways that it is not taxed or is taxed at lower rates.
Well, it did not last long. Congress cut that to 97% of income above $25,000.
Still, the cojones...
 
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The author uses some of his own first sentence quoting Mark Twain.

The federal government doesn't tax assets (property taxes, car taxes, etc. are state and local). It taxes income. So the fact that some billionaires -- a measure of assets, not income -- pay a lower tax rate on income than others is irrelevant to the assertion that they pay a bigger percentage of the dollars collected in federal income tax.

The author (Bob Lord) didn't dispute any of the facts cited in the linked article. And he doesn't back up his claim that the 2020 data was, "cherry-picked." He just says that it appears to have been the case.

Turns out, not so much.

Here's another article, from a different source, showing the breakout for historical years. Starts out with 2020 -- same numbers as the link in my post above. But scroll down a bit over halfway through and it shows 2017, 2018, and 2019. 2020 is slightly higher. But the previous 3 years, all pre-pandemic, weren't much lower. At all.

The same chart also shows 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Note how the percentage of federal income tax receipts paid by the top 1% and top 5% has roughly doubled.

Who Pays Income Taxes? - Foundation - National Taxpayers Union (ntu.org)

Then Lord drags state and local taxes and income inequality (which he conveniently doesn't define) into his attempt to discredit an article that doesn't even pretend to address either.

The article I linked in my original post, and the article linked in this one, describe what actually is and has been in recent years.

Bob Lord doesn't like the current setup and is arguing what he thinks it should be.

Lies, damned lies and statistics indeed.
This is not my field of expertise. I posted an article by someone who is an expert in taxes.

I appreciate your well thought out response, but Lord is a tax lawyer, plus his thoughts are published. IIRC, you are a banker. Maybe you know more than Lord does.

I’ll keep an open mind.
 
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This is not my field of expertise. I posted an article by someone who is an expert in taxes.

I appreciate your well thought out response, but Lord is a tax lawyer, plus his thoughts are published. IIRC, you are a banker. Maybe you know more than Lord does.

I’ll keep an open mind.
i read lord’s piece yesterday and he is very clear about his assumptions/calculations and also why he considers the use of 2020 as “cherry-picking”
 
Finally got my notice of COLA increase for 2025.

2.5%.

Hey....better than a sharp stick in the eye, eh?

I am right around the corner from pulling the retirement lever. My full retirement age is coming up in less than 2 years (1 year and 9 months). Just cashed in a substantial pension and rolled it over into my IRA......I learned that the pension payout was not indexed to inflation so my dollar value would be less and less as the years went by. I think I can invest and do better. At least that's my hope.

I have another small pension coming from my present employer, but they don't allow a cashout. But they do allow for a 5 year expedited payout. I will probably dump that into my IRA as well since I wont' need it at that point, anyway.
 
I am right around the corner from pulling the retirement lever. My full retirement age is coming up in less than 2 years (1 year and 9 months). Just cashed in a substantial pension and rolled it over into my IRA......I learned that the pension payout was not indexed to inflation so my dollar value would be less and less as the years went by. I think I can invest and do better. At least that's my hope.

I have another small pension coming from my present employer, but they don't allow a cashout. But they do allow for a 5 year expedited payout. I will probably dump that into my IRA as well since I wont' need it at that point, anyway.
If you can arrange it, I usually recommend a custodian to custodian transfer, as opposed to a distribution/rollover...
 
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