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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (652944)	4/26/2012 10:26:29 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579680

There are a few people that think like that but they're no bodies..... and I know a few. If you're collecting SS and you earn money that puts you beyond a certain number, some of your SS income is taxed. I am affected every year .....are you going to tell me that a person would give up an opportunity to earn 100K so he wouldn't lose a few thousand or more of his SS...? Nonsense. But that has nothing to do with our discussion.....I continue to maintain that it's only percentage of AGI that counts.... I can tell you, from having prepared many thousands of individual tax returns and having spent a lot of time talking with clients about this subject, they used to be damned concerned about it when the rules were different and they had to pay back half of what they earned with charges against their SS checks. A lot of people would just choose not to work. During the period before the offset rule went away totally, when they could work a few years paying tax on only half of their SS benefits (without any offset), it was a concern, too -- although not as great. In the 80s, when they began taxing people on half their SS earnings EVERYONE was concerned about it. It was a fairly logical step, given that they had never been taxed on half the SS payments in the first place. Yet, I had many clients consider the value in continuing to work after they started taxing benefits. Every nickel of incremental tax a person pays is a disincentive to working, as is every nickel of freebies they receive for not working. This isn't a tax phenomenon; it is a result of old-fashioned animal behavior. Go pitch red meat out your back door every day for a month. You'll find all kinds of animals that choose to come take the freebie rather than fend for themselves.