Taxes on Social Security Are Based on Your Income

The idea of paying taxes on Social Security benefits might seem odd to you.

After all, the money to pay those taxes comes from taxes you already paid.

You’re probably thinking about that 12.4 percent federal tax that went from your paycheck to the Old-Age and Survivors and Disability Insurance trust funds that finance Social Security payments to retirees, people with disabilities and members of their families.

If you were employed, you split the tax with your employer at 6.2 percent every time you were paid. If you were self-employed, you paid the whole thing when you filed your tax return.

Still, you may have to pay income taxes on your benefits. Whether you do depends on what the IRS calls your “combined” income.

How the IRS decides whether you owe taxes

The IRS adds up your adjusted gross income, tax-exempt interest income and half of your Social Security benefits for the year. If this figure, called your combined or provisional income, exceeds amounts enacted in laws in 1983 and 1993, a portion of your benefit is taxable. Here’s a breakdown:

• Benefits are not taxed if combined income is less than $25,000 for a single taxpayer, $32,000 for a couple filing jointly.
• Up to 50 percent of benefits can be taxed if combined income is $25,000 to $34,000 for singles, or $32,000 to $44,000 for couples filing jointly.
• Up to 85 percent of benefits can be taxed if combined income exceeds $34,000 for singles or $44,000 for couples filing jointly.

No matter how much income you receive from wages, self-employment, dividends, interest and other sources, you’ll never be taxed on all your benefits.

The IRS has an online tool that can tell you how much of your Social Security income is taxable. If you do have to pay taxes on your benefits, it will be at the same rate as the tax on your work earnings.

About half of Social Security recipients paid federal income taxes on their benefits in 2021, the most recent information available, according to an August 2024 Congressional Budget Office report.

A new federal tax deduction, in effect through 2028, could determine whether you pay taxes on your Social Security benefits.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, includes a $6,000 deduction for millions of taxpayers 65 and older. The special deduction, effective for tax years 2025 through 2028, does not change how Social Security benefits are taxed; however, it can reduce taxable income and taxes due on Social Security benefits.

The Social Security Administration says provisions in the new law will mean that nearly 9 in 10 Social Security recipients, including those who previously had incomes too low to be charged, won’t owe taxes on their monthly payments.

You can have taxes withheld from Social Security

If you’re worried about paying a big bill to the IRS, you shouldn’t wait to send a year’s worth of income taxes all at once. You can have a percentage withheld from your monthly Social Security benefit.

You can start withholding when you apply for Social Security, or do so later by filling out IRS Form W-4V and submitting it to a Social Security office. You can choose to have 7 percent, 10 percent, 12 percent or 22 percent of your benefits applied to your next tax bill, and if during the year you find that you’re withholding too much or too little, you can submit a new Form W-4V.

Another option: File estimated tax payments quarterly to avoid an underpayment penalty from the IRS when you file your tax return. Generally, if you owe more than $1,000 when you file your return — often because of income outside of Social Security that had no taxes withheld — the IRS may hit you with an underpayment penalty.

If you end up paying too much, you’ll get the excess back as a refund, as you did when you were drawing a paycheck.

Some states tax benefits too

Nine states levy their own taxes on Social Security benefits: Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia.

The taxation rules vary by state. West Virginia is phasing out its tax; 2025 is the last year when residents will owe any state taxes on their benefits. Three states — Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska — stopped taxing benefits in 2024.

Benefits haven’t always been taxed

For more than four decades after Social Security sent out its first check in 1940, benefits weren’t federally taxed. However, Congress overhauled the program’s finances in 1983, and since the year after that, the U.S. government has taxed some portion of Social Security income for some beneficiaries.

But the government doesn’t treat that money the same as general tax revenues. Like your payroll taxes, the federal income taxes collected on benefits go into the Social Security trust funds. That means the money contributes to future benefit payments and helps shore up the Social Security system’s finances.

The latest federal trustees’ report projects the trust funds’ depletion by 2034. A late July report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., and a study from the Social Security Administration released in August predict that date will now arrive in late 2032 because of this year’s tax law changes.

This story, originally published April 16, 2025, was updated with information about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that became law in July.

Contributing: Tracy Thompson, Tamara E. Holmes

About the author

Andy Markowitz is an AARP senior writer and editor covering Social Security and retirement. He is a former editor of the Prague Post and Baltimore City Paper.

About the reviewer

Jammie Lyell, the Social Security program manager for AARP’s office of community, state and national affairs, previously worked at the Social Security Administration as a legal administrative specialist and technical expert. He earned a master’s degree in organizational psychology from Walden University.

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