In the United States there are several types of benefits sent monthly by the Social Security Administration. The main ones are the retirement benefit and Supplemental Security Income. It is possible to receive both at the same time as well as other income.
But if you receive more than one type of payment at the same time, you should watch out for taxes. While it is true that Supplemental Security Income is not taxable, the Social Security check is taxable, especially if we have different incomes.
That’s why paying attention to everything related to our taxes is so important, as it can get us into trouble at some point. However, if we know well what the rules are for paying taxes by collecting Social Security, we should not have any problems in this regard.
Also, in the case of starting to collect Social Security for retirement we must watch out, since the salary as a pre-retirement worker could interfere in our Tax Return, so we have to watch out everything very carefully.
DO I HAVE TO PAY TAXES IF I COLLECT SOCIAL SECURITY?
Here we enter a realm that can be difficult for many citizens. In most cases, cashing a Social Security check alone does not involve paying taxes. However, if you collect a different payment in addition to retirement, you may have to pay taxes on it.
If you have other income, half of your benefits may be taxable. The end result would be half of the benefits plus the rest of your income. This also includes tax-exempt interest.
The base amount to be able to report our Social Security payments to the IRS is as follows (official SSA source):
- $25,000 if you are single, head of household or qualifying surviving spouse,
- $25,000 if you are married and filing separately and have lived apart from your spouse for the entire year,
- $32,000 if married filing jointly,
- $0 if you are married and filing separately and lived with your spouse at any time during the attorney’s year.
Therefore, if in the previous year we have worked for part of the year and then started collecting Social Security we must check very well what our income has been. And it is that if we have had some extra income apart from these two it is possible that in the end we will have to pay some more taxes.
In short, if we have doubts about this, it is best to consult an advisor, but what is certain is that if we have had a salary and a Social Security check in the same year we would have to pay taxes in most of the occasions.