The Social Security Administration’s false statements about the alleged “no taxes on Social Security.”

Within hours of the passage of the reconciliation bill of 2025, tens of millions of Americans received a statement from the Social Security Administration that claimed that

• “The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries . . . . “
• “The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits . . . . “

Those statements are false. 

See The Hill, Social Security no taxes message on Trump bill raises eyebrows. Per The Hill,“There is no provision in the budget bill that directly ‘eliminates’ or even reduces taxes on Social Security benefits,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, told the Washington Post.

The bill does not “eliminate” taxes on Social Security benefits or “ensure” that 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits. What the bill does is to increase the standard deduction by $6,000 for seniors, to be applied against all taxable income that does not exceed $75,000 individually or $150,000 jointly.

But as noted by The Hill’s reporting, “64 percent of seniors receiving Social Security income paid no tax on their Social Security due to exemptions and deductions.” Under the reconciliation bill, that percentage will increase to 88%, a difference of 24% of seniors who will not be paying taxes on some or all of their Social Security income as a result of the bill’s provisions.

Because of the way income deductions work to lower tax rates,“The people who benefit by definition have to be richer, and people who benefit the most are the richest people,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told CBS News.

In short, only about a quarter of seniors will see any tax benefit from the increase in the standard deduction—a far cry from claims made by the Social Security Administration about there being “no tax on Social Security benefits.”

Moreover, the statement by the Social Security Administration failed to mention that the increase in the standard deduction will expire in 2028 while the cuts to Medicaid under the bill and cuts to Medicare under the PayGo Act of $500 billion will continue for a decade (unless reversed by Congress).