Unnecessary Breaks Richard Quinn | July 24, 2021, 1:24 pm ET
IT’S SOCIETY’S responsibility to provide for those in need. “Need” is the key word here. It bothers me that so many resources are directed to those of us who made it to old age. Although there are many low-income seniors, the generalization that we’re all income-challenged is a fallacy.
According to the Congressional Research Service, “The poverty rate for individuals aged 65 and older historically was higher than the rates for adults aged 18-64 and children under the age of 18, but today is the lowest among those three age groups.”
The fact is, seniors have a higher median net worth than most younger Americans. Their median income is equal to or greater than many middle-aged Americans raising families and saving for retirement. Nevertheless, senior discounts and tax advantages indirectly transfer monetary resources from younger to older Americans.
Source: Unnecessary Breaks – HumbleDollar
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Will the Quinn household decide not to take the additional elderly discount on their 2021 tax return in an effort to correct this issue? This is assuming you are well above poverty level.
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The Quinn household does, as should every household in America from Bezos on down, legally utilize the tax code to not pay more than required. However, if you refer to the additional standard deduction at 65, you make my point. Why should such a benefit be based solely on age?
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If you truly believe it is wrong, you have the freedom to express your disagreement by not claiming the additional standard deduct for being 65+. Though it sounds as if it is too your advantage, you will not turn down the unneeded benefit.
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The issue is one for society. The basic question is do we allocate a disproportionate amount of our collective resources to seniors and thus leave less for children and younger Americans? Didn’t seniors have a working life of forty years or more to get their life in order? This is especially significant when our spending is creating more debt for younger generations. None of this says we should not provide assistance for those truly in need, but that does not include seniors as a class most of whom are doing just fine.
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