Taxing Social Security Benefits

State Assemblyman Elihu Harris (D-Oakland) praised his Assembly-approved, drastic overhaul of the California tax code (Op-Ed Page, Aug. 18), and called on the Senate to go along with subjecting some Social Security benefits to the state income tax.

His apparent rationale is simple: California’s tax code should slap a tax on Social Security benefits because the federal income tax does.

So if the United States Congress makes a terrible error and doesn’t correct it, then it’s all right for the California Legislature to make the very same error--apparently that’s what Assemblyman Harris would have you believe.

To those state senators worried about the political repercussions of subjecting Social Security benefits to the income tax, the Revenue and Taxation Committee member says, “The fact is that only the wealthy Social Security recipient is ever subject to this provision of law.”

What Harris ignores is the unfairness of taxing Social Security benefits at any level. Social Security benefits are based solely on an individual’s earnings record.

If two individuals paid the maximum Social Security tax over the same period of time, their monthly benefit checks are the same. The mere fact that one person has substantial retirement income from other source should not automatically mean his Social Security benefits will be treated differently.

Even if the tax on Social Security benefits wasn’t wrong, it would still be patently unfair to seniors. Neither the federal income tax code nor the proposed new California code makes any provision for indexing the level of other income necessary to trigger the tax on benefits.

So, as inflation inevitably drives up outside retirement income, more and more seniors will see their Social Security benefits subject to income taxes.

The 1970s showed us what devastation the lack of indexing can bring, as each year inflation drove more and more individuals into higher tax brackets, while at the same time they experienced a real drop in buying power.

If those reasons aren’t enough for the Senate to turn thumbs down on taxing Social Security benefits, I offer one more--the sheer foolishness of slapping a new income tax on seniors at a time when the Legislature is under a mandate to start giving taxpayers some of their money back.

JAMES ROOSEVELT

Chairman, National Committee

to Preserve Social Security

and Medicare

Washington, D.C.