Legislation to repeal the federal income tax on Social Security benefits outright now carries the backing of 35 House Republicans, including its lead sponsor. The Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act has been reintroduced in nearly every Congress for more than two decades, and its current version, H.R.1040, has sat in the House Ways and Means Committee since early last year. It remains a proposal, not a change to how Social Security benefits are taxed today.
A Tax With Roots in 1983
Social Security benefits were entirely exempt from federal income tax until Congress changed that with the Social Security Amendments of 1983, taxing a rising share of benefits as a beneficiary’s income climbs above set thresholds, according to a Congressional Research Service passage quoted directly in Rep. Massie’s own press release announcing the bill. Those same thresholds — a separate CRS brief on benefit taxation confirms — have never been indexed to inflation since, so the share of benefits subject to tax has grown steadily: from 12.2% of all Social Security payments in 1994 to 38.2% in 2022. H.R.1040 does not propose adjusting those thresholds; it proposes eliminating the tax on Social Security benefits entirely.
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What the Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act Would Do
H.R.1040 would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the inclusion of Social Security benefits, and Tier I railroad retirement benefits, in an individual’s gross income, according to the bill’s official summary tracked by LegiScan from Congress.gov data. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., the bill’s sponsor, framed it in his announcement as ending a “double tax,” arguing that because Social Security is funded through payroll taxes workers already paid, taxing the resulting benefits again amounts to what he called “a way for Congress to obtain more revenue for the federal government at the expense of seniors who have already paid into Social Security.” Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., a cosponsor, made a similar case in the same release, saying seniors on fixed incomes are “double-taxed because of income taxes on their Social Security benefits.”
35 Republicans, a Two-Decade History, No Democratic Support
The current bill carries Massie plus 34 Republican cosponsors, according to LegiScan’s sponsor list — no Democratic member has signed on. Massie’s press release traces the legislation back to 2003, when it was first introduced by then-Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas; Massie has reintroduced a version of it in every Congress since he took office in 2012. The Association of Mature American Citizens Action, a seniors’ advocacy group, endorsed the bill in the same release, saying the tax on already-taxed contributions “curtails retirement benefits seniors have been promised.”
Referred to Committee, With a Companion Bill in the Senate
The House referred H.R.1040 to the Ways and Means Committee on February 6, 2025, the day it was introduced, and LegiScan’s tracking shows no hearing, markup or vote has followed since. LegiScan also lists a companion measure, S.458, introduced the same day and read twice and referred to the Senate Finance Committee — meaning the same repeal has been proposed in both chambers, though neither version has moved past its originating committee. For H.R.1040 to become law, Ways and Means would need to act on it, the full House and Senate would each need to pass a version, and a president would need to sign it; none of those steps has occurred, and current law continues to tax a portion of Social Security benefits exactly as it has for four decades.
What Full Repeal Would Give Up, in a Bill Reintroduced Since 2012
Under the current formula, a single filer with combined income above $25,000, or a married couple filing jointly above $32,000, owes federal tax on part of their Social Security benefit, according to the Social Security Administration. That tax is not simply an inconvenience for the federal ledger: the CRS brief on benefit taxation reports that in 2023 alone, the income taxes collected on Social Security benefits credited $50.7 billion to the Social Security trust funds and $35.0 billion to the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund. H.R.1040’s summary does not include a mechanism to replace that revenue, unlike some earlier versions of similar repeal bills that CRS notes proposed appropriating general federal revenue to hold the trust funds “harmless” for the loss — a detail any committee markup would need to resolve before full repeal could move forward. Beyond Massie and Webster, the AMAC statement in the bill’s announcement framed the stakes in blunt terms, arguing that taxing benefits “created from already taxed funds is nonsensical and curtails retirement benefits seniors have been promised.” That the same bill, largely unchanged in purpose, has now been introduced in Congress after Congress since Ron Paul first filed it in 2003 — and every two years since Massie took it up in 2012 — is itself evidence of how the underlying rule has resisted change through repeated waves of Republican-only bills referred to committee and left there.
The Programs Nobody Mentions
Debates over the Social Security benefit tax get attention in Washington; the assistance programs that already exist for retirees on a fixed income get almost none, and enrollment in several of them stays open only to people who apply. State property-tax relief and circuit-breaker credits can lower a retiree’s biggest fixed cost, and Extra Help can cut prescription drug spending — both sit unclaimed by many who qualify simply because no one told them to file.
The Benefits Checklist lays out property-tax relief, circuit-breaker credits and Extra Help among eleven programs total, each with its 2026 income limits and a 50-state phone directory.
Compare eligibility for these programs in The Benefits Checklist.
AI tools assisted in researching and drafting this article, which was reviewed prior to publication.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
