The Social Security Administration has sent a misleading email to beneficiaries stating that President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cuts and spending law eliminates taxes on Social Security benefits for most recipients.
“The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy,” said the email, which multiple beneficiaries shared with NBC News.
“The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples,” it said.
An identical note was posted to the SSA’s website on Thursday, the same day multiple beneficiaries told NBC News they received the email.
The emails came before Trump prepared to sign his massive tax cuts and spending package, what he’s called the “big, beautiful bill,” into law in a July Fourth ceremony at the White House.
The Trump domestic policy package, which Congress sent to his desk on Thursday, extends the president’s expiring tax cuts he enacted in 2017, and also creates a temporary tax deduction for earnings from tips and overtime.
But it does not eliminate federal taxes on Social Security. Budget reconciliation, the arcane process Senate Republicans used to pass the bill while avoiding a Democratic filibuster, does not allow changes to be made to Social Security.
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Former SSA officials and congressional Democrats said they were appalled by what they viewed as a highly political email being sent to Americans by a federal agency.
“This email went to every Social Security subscriber and every word of it is a lie. Social Security benefits are still taxed. This big, ugly bill doesn’t change that,” New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote on X. “It’s disturbing to see Trump hijack a public institution to push blatant misinformation.”
Politifact rates this mostly false:
Under current law, Americans over 65 years old are already eligible for tax deductions — $2,000 if married or $1,600 if unmarried and not a surviving spouse. The House and Senate proposals would boost those amounts.
The House-approved version provides an additional $4,000 tax deduction for people ages 65 and older, and the Senate version would give an additional $6,000 tax deduction to people aged 65 and older. Neither deduction represents an end to tax on Social Security, and both versions would exclude Social Security beneficiaries who are 62 to 64, and dependents, deceased workers’ survivors and disabled workers who have not turned 65.
The White House has described the tax break differently than Trump, saying in a June 29 press release that the new tax deduction, “combined with other deductions, ensures the average Social Security beneficiary will pay zero taxes on Social Security.” It called it a “myth” that the bill “doesn’t actually end taxes on Social Security,” saying the “fact” is the bill “delivers historic tax relief to seniors.”
Taxation of Social Security benefits began with 1983 legislation that was designed to help shore up Social Security’s finances. The taxes are calculated based on a complicated formula that involves recipients’ overall income, their tax-exempt interest income and half of their Social Security benefits. The revenues from taxing Social Security benefits are set aside for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
Trump said during the 2024 campaign that “seniors should not pay tax on Social Security,” but the bill doesn’t deliver that. If either the House or Senate version of the bill is signed into law, some Social Security recipients would still pay income tax on their benefits.
The reason lawmakers drafting the bill did not repeal all taxation of Social Security benefits has to do with Senate procedural quirks. To pass the bill with a simple majority vote, provisions need to survive a parliamentary vetting process known as the “Byrd bath,” named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. This process bars directly cutting Social Security.
So the House and Senate crafted workarounds that sought to achieve something as close as possible to Trump’s promise.
Under the legislative workarounds, there is significant overlap between people who would benefit from the tax break and people who receive Social Security payments. But not everyone would benefit, and the break isn’t permanent, lasting through 2028.
One group that would not receive the tax break is people who are direct Social Security beneficiaries younger than 65. In December 2024, federal data shows, about 5% of retired Social Security beneficiaries were ages 62 to 64.
Other groups that would not get the deduction are retired workers’ dependents, deceased workers’ survivors, and disabled workers and their dependents who are not yet 65.
Finally, wealthier taxpayers would not benefit. The tax break would phase out at higher income levels — at $175,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers, according to the Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank.
And yes, it is almost certainly designed by Russell Vought and company to further deplete the trust fund:
The PolitiFact reader asked, “As I understand your fact checking, the taxes paid on Social Security go to the Social Security trust fund. Does this make the date when benefits will be cut for all come sooner?”
The answer is yes — and by experts’ analyses, anyone born after 1967 could see the effect.
Taxation of Social Security benefits began with 1983 legislation that was designed to help shore up Social Security’s finances. Certain tax revenues, including the taxation of Social Security benefits, are deposited directly into the Social Security trust fund, to pay for current beneficiaries.
Once the trust fund runs out of money, it will trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts.
In their 2025 annual report, Social Security trustees estimated that the program’s trust fund would become insolvent in 2033. That was before Congress approved Trump’s bill.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscally hawkish group, ran the numbers on the Senate version of the bill, which the House approved without changes on July 3. It is headed to Trump’s desk, and he’s said he will sign it.
The group calculated that the changes from Trump’s bill will reduce Social Security tax revenues by $30 billion per year — meaning the trust fund would be exhausted several months earlier, in 2032 rather than in 2033.
The bill’s estimated impact on Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund — which operates in a similar way to the Social Security trust fund — means the fund would run out mid 2032, not late 2033.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also projected that when insolvency hits in 2032, Social Security recipients would see their benefits cut by 24%, while payments from the Medicare trust fund will decline by 11%.
They could, of course, raise the cap on Social Security contributions so that richer people have to pay more in, but that is apparently a pipe dream.
And people will have this tax break as long as Dear Leader is in office and it will go away if a Democrats is in which will make everyone hate them even more. It’s very clever.