RE: Impact on other programs, and tax considerations

[James <jamesk_51@hotmail.com>]

>From Richard Arsinow 

>>>>>With regard to the other half, financed by employers, while the taxes are deductible, the benefits were designed and decreed to be tax exempt when Social Security was created, and should have stayed that way.

SS was not designed to be tax exempt when it was created.  That was merely a ruling by the Treasury Dept (who is in charge of the IRS) later as the first benefits were paid.  The tax exemption was not considered in the design of the benefits or associated formulas.  Nor was the subject statutory until 1983, when SS benefits were first partially taxed.