Taxes are, unfortunately, a part of life. And by the time you get to retirement, you may be used to them.
But it’s one thing to pay taxes on things like your salary or even retirement plan withdrawals. It can feel like another thing entirely to pay taxes on your Social Security benefits.
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One big reason many seniors resent paying taxes on Social Security is that you qualify for those benefits by paying taxes on your income, and how much you’ll get each month depends on the quantity of taxes you pay over the years. To then owe taxes on the benefits you receive from the government almost feels like you’re being taxed twice.
Moreover, the minimum income thresholds beyond which you begin to get taxed on Social Security in retirement are low. But with one key move, you may be able to get out of paying those taxes.
How the taxation of Social Security works
It’s not a given that you’ll pay taxes on your Social Security benefits in retirement. Whether you do or not depends on a measurement dubbed “combined income.”
Your combined income is calculated by adding up your adjusted gross income, 50% of your annual Social Security income, and any non-taxable income you receive. (For example, you might get tax-exempt interest payments if you own municipal bonds.)
If your tax filing status is single and your combined income is more than $25,000, you could owe some taxes on your Social Security benefits. For married couples filing jointly, the combined income threshold is $32,000.
One way to get out of paying taxes on your Social Security checks
If you’re not yet retired, there’s one move you can make to keep your future combined income lower while still setting yourself up for a comfortable retirement — save and invest through a Roth IRA or do a Roth conversion before your career wraps up.
As you may be aware, Roth IRA withdrawals are tax-free and don’t count as taxable income. This means they don’t count toward your combined income.
So if you don’t earn a lot of tax-free interest or other income, you may be able to stay below the combined income threshold if the largest source of income going into that calculation is 50% of what Social Security pays you each year.
Of course, saving enough for retirement in a Roth IRA can be tricky because the annual contribution limits aren’t high, and there are income limits that bar higher earners from contributing to them directly. Roth IRA conversions can be tough, too. You have to get the timing right or you can get hit by a major tax bill in the year you undertake them.
But if you want to avoid paying taxes on your Social Security checks, then it’s a worthwhile strategy to focus more on investing through a Roth IRA during your working years. As an added perk, you’ll not only enjoy tax-free withdrawals from your nest egg, but you also won’t have to worry about required minimum distributions (RMDs).
When you save and invest using tax-advantaged retirement accounts like a 401(k) or a traditional IRA, you don’t pay taxes on the money you contribute in the year you earn it. But you do pay some taxes when you withdraw money from them later. RMDs force you to withdraw specific percentages of your account balances each year (and pay taxes on the withdrawals), meaning you don’t have complete control over how you deal with your nest egg. Neither of those things is the case with a Roth account. So aside from the potential to sidestep a tax bill on your Social Security income, that’s another good reason to consider a Roth IRA.
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