Taxing Social Security Benefits

By: - October 1, 2013 12:00 am

The 14 states that tax Social Security benefits collect almost billion a year from seniors.

A new study released Tuesday by AARP shows the federal government collected .9 billion in taxes on Social Security income in 2011. Only a handful of states tax those retirement benefits, and AARP estimated the state take at million a year.

The five highest state tax collections on Social Security benefits, according to AARP research, are:

  1. Minnesota million
  2. New Mexico million
  3. Utah million
  4. Nebraska million
  5. Kansas million

About 1 out of 6 Americans—57 million people—received .6 billion in Social Security benefits in 2012. The AARP research also estimated nationwide economic output from seniors spending their Social Security checks at .4 trillion and 9.2 million jobs.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.