Less than a week ago, President Donald Trump’s mega bill and reconciliation package was passed by Congress in a 218-214 vote in the House and will be officially signed into law by the president during a ceremony at the White House on Friday. The bill, titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will provide senior citizens who receive Social Security benefits with an additional $6,000 tax deduction for a temporary period.
Following the passage of this bill, it has been alleged that taxes on Social Security benefits have now been eliminated under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, however, the statement provided by the SSA via email is said to be misleading according to critics. Whilst the Social Security Administration (SSA) had previously been known to be an apolitical agency, the SSA has celebrated the passage of this bill and said that it is a “a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.”
Here is what you need to know regarding the elimination of Social Security taxes and what critics are saying about the SSA’s misleading statements.
Social Security and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
“This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors,” Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano stated in a news release. “By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect social security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned.”
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill, taxes on benefits will not actually be eliminated despite the White House stating that, “under the One Big Beautiful Bill, the vast majority of senior citizens — 88% of all seniors who receive Social Security — will pay NO TAX on their Social Security benefits, according to a brand new analysis from the Council of Economic Advisers.” As such, many critics, including previous SSA officials, have shared that the framing of the changes to Social Security under this new bill have been misleading.
“People are like: ‘Is this real? Is this a scam?’ Because it’s not what they signed up for,” said Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the SSA under the Biden Administration, as per CNN. “It doesn’t sound like normal government communications, official communications. It sounds like – you know – partisan.”
Taxes on benefits are not being eliminated under the new bill, despite it being framed as such. Instead, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, seniors aged 65 and older will be able to benefit from an additional $6,000 tax deduction for individual filers and $12,000 for joint filers. The tax deduction will only apply to seniors with an income below the threshold of $175,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Furthermore, the additional tax break will only be a temporary reprieve and will come into effect starting in the tax year 2026 and ending two years later in 2028.
What are people saying?
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, recipients of Social Security income will face a change in the taxable income threshold and as a result, an additional $6,000 tax break will come into effect. Many critics and former SSA officials are claiming that the framing of this change is largely misleading as it is being announced as the elimination of taxes on benefits, rather than the threshold change that it is.
Jeff Nesbit, who worked as a top SSA official under both Republican and Democratic presidents, made a post on social media platform X that read as follows, “The agency has never issued such a blatant political statement. The fact that Trump and his minion running SSA has done this is unconscionable.”
“This big, ugly bill doesn’t change that,” New Jersey representative Frank Pallone, a top Democrat on the House’s energy and commerce committee, wrote in a post on X. “It’s disturbing to see Trump hijack a public institution to push blatant misinformation.”
In the same post on X, Pallone also wrote that, “This email went to every Social Security subscriber and every word of it is a lie.”