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AUTHOR: R Quinn on 3/16/2025
As I do my daily social media surfing I am finding a disturbing trend- anti tax sentiment and one group or another thinking they should be exempt from taxes. We Americans are not among the highest taxed countries and despite the rhetoric, the wealthy do pay the great bulk of taxes.
Seniors seem to be the most vocal looking for tax exemption. Many feel they should be exempt from property taxes and of course, paying taxes on Social Security benefits. I am not referring to seniors living in or near poverty.
I find the calls to exempt seniors from property taxes most disturbing and illogical. Especially as property taxes are the primary source of school funding.
Income taxes on Social Security benefits contribute $50 billion a year to the SS trust and $35 billion to Medicare Part A trust.
To me, looking to avoid taxes without considering what they provide is like saying a family living on credit cards should not have to pay the bill at the end of the month because they earned or deserve what they purchased.
“Earned” and “deserve” are frequently used in posts. Living on a fixed income and inflation are common themes.
Exempting one group of citizens from taxes simply shifts more to another group. Frankly, I don’t think seniors deserve more consideration than a young working family trying to build their future.
Besides, no group of citizens (often without regard to income) receives more benefits, more special treatment, more discounts than seniors. Possibly as a result of a general erroneous mindset that seniors as a group are poor.
Preparing for retirement, a life-long process in my view, includes preparing for taxes of all kinds. The pages of HD are full of discussion on the subject. We all use the tax code to minimize our taxes, but we pay what is necessary – to provide vital services, to have good schools and to assist those in need. That how a good society works. Being fortunate by getting old does not exempt us from that responsibility IMO.
We seniors had a lifetime to prepare for living in old age, without a paycheck. If a person had modest earnings their working life, chances are that will not change in retirement, nor is it a surprise. We knew our income might not grow, we knew inflation was real, we knew we would owe taxes and should have known some would increase.
Sorry, it’s everyone in the pool in my book – while providing necessary assistance to those truly in need.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I don’t agree with you on many of your posts but this one I do agree with. Those Seniors complaining on paying school taxes; where were they when their kids were going to school. It was OK then for Seniors to pay the school taxes when their kids went to school. As for not paying property taxes, Seniors use a lot of municipal services such as Police, Fire and especially Ambulance services. Garbage pick up doesn’t stop when they reach 65. Snow plowing of streets so those ambulances can reach them in a medical emergency still continues. Paving streets and other municipal project still continue and most towns fund a senior center as well. On this one your correct Mr. Quinn.
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Al Lindquist
Everyone in the pool is fine except 49% of us pay no federal income tax–when you hear that figure then obviously folks figure why should they pay federal tax if almost half do not–you can’t advocate for all of us to pay if knowingly 1/2 do not—why do some pay and some do not?–Everyone needs skin in the game.
What “special treatment” tax wise do I and my friends benefit by–if seniors earning “X” dollars get reduced property taxes for an example the 49% folks get reduced taxes for having children or having numerous other deductions–we’ve built in all sorts of gimmicks to buy votes for seniors and the young/middle aged. All of our gimmicks and our desire to spend money have led to this massive debt.
Heck the corpse wanted to wipe out certain dollar amounts of college loans–how many of my friends benefit by that? All for young and middle aged folks in an attempt to buy their votes. Didn’t hear you railing about that give away over and over.
So everyone in the pool and that means everyone, but we know it doesn’t and it becomes very political and ideological–if my guy says it half the country agrees–if it is your guy we have the same situation.
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