Biden to seniors: Romney will tax your Social Security benefits

Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at the Century Village Clubhouse in Boca Raton, Fla., Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. / AP Photo/Terry Renna

(CBS News) BOCA RATON, Fla. - Vice President Joe Biden told senior citizens here Friday that Republican nominee Mitt Romney's economic plan could raise taxes on their Social Security benefits.

"Instead of dealing with a balanced approach, how to keep these programs in place, they've decided what you do is you shift all the costs to the recipients," Biden said to over 800 seniors.

He said most seniors don't have to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits and millions more pay taxes on only a fraction of their benefits. If Romney's tax plan goes into effect, he said, "the average senior would have to pay $460 more in taxes on their benefits."

Biden was extrapolating from studies that found Romney could not reach his goals of cutting taxes 20 percent for everyone and balancing the budget without ending or limiting some tax breaks that benefit the middle class. The assumption is that some of that tax burden would fall on Social Security benefits.

Romney has been unwilling to specify what deductions he would seek to eliminate, which leaves room for the Obama campaign to speculate about the impact on Social Security beneficiaries. But Romney has never said that he would raise taxes on Social Security benefits, and he has promised that he will not reduce Social Security benefits for current retirees.

Campaigning Friday in Wayne, Pa., Romney said it is President Obama who would raise taxes. "I don't want to raise taxes on the American people, not when our economy's in the kind of trouble it's in," he said. "I will not raise taxes on middle income Americans."

Sarah Huisenga and Margot Sanger-Katz contributed to this report.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Romney/Ryan and their fellow republicans CANNOT TELL THE TRUTH about what they want to do. Because they know voters would soundly reject them. Think about it. In 2010 republicans campaigned for congress on creating jobs. But what did they do after gaining control of the house? They began the war on women, they cause America's credit rating to be downgraded, they refused to extend unemployment benefits, they refused to allow a voted on President Obama's job act.

They have created unnecessary voter I.D. laws at the state level to suppress the vote of likely Democratic voters. I could go on and on with numeous examples of how republicans have used they public office to benefit corporations, big oil, big pharma and the super rick over struggling Americans.

Bottom line republicans have shown they are incapable and unworthy of holding public office. Now it's up to voters to vote against them like they have voted against us.

[comfypaws]

Social Security benefits have been taxed since Clinton was in office and Biden voted in favor

[marychgo]

So much know-nothing commentary! The U.S. Treasury is paying the Social Security "trust fund" back for the 2% payroll tax cut, so that DOESN'T reduce the amount available to pay future claims. And the FICA (Social Security) and Medicare taxes working Americans pay every year are paid with after-tax dollars; the EMPLOYER's contribution, however, is paid with pre-tax dollars. That's why Social Security recipients whose non-Social Security income is above certain limits are taxed on half their SS benefits.

[mgkline1]

OK so I have to break it down for the moron liberal out there:

Payroll tax is a tax that directly funds social security. It is split evenly between the Employer and the Employee at 6.20%. Obama has and continues to fight for the payroll tax holiday that lowers the employee contribution from 6.20% to 4.20% and is set to expire on December 31st. Now that has been defined when you take 2% away from the revenue generating source of the Social Security then you are in fact taking money away from the trust fund causing it to go insolvent sooner rather than later. Now what is the plan to recoup that money that was taken away, tax the employee portion at 7.20% for 3 years or forgo any additional infusion of cash into the trust fund and let it go bankrupt sooner.

I also love it when people think I do not know how taxable income and 401K's work so yet again I said SS is taxable because it is LIKE a 401k and that the monies take out are pretax dollars just like your flexible spending accounts and medical insurance premiums. All in all it lowers your adjust gross income and you have your taxable income at the end of the calculations.

Now back to SS and its tax ability. If you are collecting SS and you earn over 25K single and 34K married filing jointly, and these are old figures but they should be close, you do not pay any taxes on your SS income. But if you make over 25k to 34k then you have to pay a 50% tax on your SS income. The max you will every pay in taxes on your SS income is 85% so it is not taxed at all. For all of us that have retirement plans such as 401K's and IRA's we will be taxed on our SS income when we get that point in our lives so look forward to paying more in taxes even after you retire.

It is a shame that in order to collect our SS we have to pay in for almost 50 years until you retire at the age of 67. If you think I am lying then go look it up yourself on the SS.gov website and or talk to your tax adviser because the facts are clear here, Obama has provided a payroll tax holiday with the intent of stimulating the economy. This policy failed like so many others and now we have less money in the social security trust fund which yet again reduces the date monies run out of the SS trust fund unless additional money is put back into it to offset that lost amount.

[jmn122736]

Your comment fits the description; figures don't lie but liars figure.

First, temporarily reducing taxes on SS and Medicare has aided in the current slow recovery the economy is experiencing.

Second, The Romney-Ryan voucher system will definitely drain funds from Medicare to pay for the exorbitant monthly premiums insurance companies will charge seniors. That is, the seniors insurance companies do not deny coverage because of preexisting conditions.

[barryeod]

401k's and IRA's produce capital gains, not income. Your SS income will not be affected.

Like you, I believe that government entitlement programs, like social security and Medicare, are robbing us blind. We absolutely need to continue our cannot survive our "starve the beast" strategy. We just need more Republican leaders who truly understand how the best is killed.

[levelheadedtoo]

Mitt Romney is the last guy on the planet qualified to discuss SS or middle income Americans earnings. Last month he described middle income to be $250.000. However, economist place middle income around $50,000.

Mitt made $54,800 per day in 2011 on his Bain Capital investment portfolio. The average middle income family made $153.00 per day.

I don't care how much money a rich guy has. Just don't talk down to me about how you intend to help me out. We aren't all stupid. We know if Mitt is elected he will make being rich an even better thing and being poor an even worse thing.

[mgkline1]

lets not forget that Obama has also said that the upper part of middle class is 200K and 250K for married even though it goes to the 117K range for the IRS and the tax tables. You can only assume that he will favor the rich more but in many cases that is not true. If portion of politicians that have benefited from their own policies it is the democrats. Al gore has gone from being worth almost nothing to being worth hundreds to millions of dollars, Nancy Pelosi owns millions, Charlie Rangle has houses all over the world, and the list goes on and one. Well over and I think it is 47% of congress are millionaires and yet they barely passed a law that forbid them from using internal trading tactics on passed or upcoming legislation. many of the politicians are looking out for themselves and not the interest of their districts, or the United States of America.

[forumcomments]

The sweeping tax changes of the 90's included taxing ss income after a certain amount. I guess some don't realzie this, it has been taxed now for decades. we have to keep borrowing so we don't go broke.

[LosAngelesCA]

I got news for you. Social security benefits are already taxed. It's an outrage if you ask me. The other outrage is the fact that they did not get cost of living increases for 3 years straight but federal workers did.

How is that fair?

[Yeah_Its_Me]

Wrong, Bobby.

[RollotheNorman]

Bobby you are an outrageous liar. But then what can we expect: It's obvious you are a RepubliCON fool.

[LosAngelesCA]

I got news for you. Social security benefits are already taxed. It's an outrage if you ask me. The other outrage is the fact that they did not get cost of living increases for 3 years straight but federal workers did.

How is that fair?

[mgkline1]

SS and Medicare are pretax deductions just like your 401K and when the monies are received they are then subject to the income tax. I guess people are forgetting the shell game that Obama has come up with as a so called tax break for the middle class, the payroll tax cut by 1%. Well the payroll tax is what funds SS from our paychecks so this so called great president of ours has been robbing from SS for well over a year and no one has yet to call him out on it and how much he has robbed from those coffers. Let's be honest crack smoking Joe and call it like it is if you plan on pointing fingers, Obama stole from SS where Romney has a tax plan that needs to be approved by congress before implementation (A.K.A. future/proposed/thinking about to in place at this time).

[cattiej]

lier another comment by a paid Repub handmainden of Karl Rove

[RollotheNorman]

You are a moron. Proof positive that Fox causes brain-rot!

[crashdummy38]

Social Security benefits are already taxed.

[RollotheNorman]

Absolutely, but most people's benefit is so small it doesn't add up to enough to put them into a taxable bracket. What Biden is saying is that Willard will lower the taxable brackets, so that OASI recipients have to remit some small sum at year's end. This has been a RepubliCON talking point about tax fairness for several years now. Everybody should pony up Income Tax, including big chunks of that 47% Willard was talking about in May. But of course, he'll cut the Capital Gains Tax rate so job creators like himself will feel like creating more jobs. So Mom and Pop, there will be WalMart Greeter jobs for you when Willard rejiggers the tax rates.

[RollotheNorman]

Bobby, see my comment above, it applies here. There has been no change in OASI for anybody.