Seniors get a tax break in Trump’s megabill, but many will still pay taxes on Social Security benefits. Here’s the real deal

Senior citizens are getting a tax break in President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package, but it’s not the one the president promised on the campaign trail last year.

Senior citizens are getting a tax break in President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package, but it’s not the one the president promised on the campaign trail last year. Congressional Republicans could not eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits in their megabill because it would not have been allowed under the process GOP lawmakers were using to pass the legislation in the Senate without Democratic support. (That hasn’t stopped Trump and administration officials from claiming at times that the “big, beautiful bill” did get rid of taxes on benefits.) Instead, the package gives senior citizens an additional $6,000 deduction on their federal income taxes between 2025 and 2028. Joint filers get twice that amount. The benefit begins to phase out for single taxpayers earning more than $75,000 and married couples earning $150,000. Individuals who earn more than $175,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 don’t qualify. The beefed-up deduction will benefit fewer than half of older Americans, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And it provides a smaller tax break, on average, for certain taxpayers than the elimination of taxes on Social Security benefits would have. “On average, it’s a modest reduction for older adults,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the center. “The winners here are upper-middle-income people. People who could get nothing are very high-income people and very low-income people.”