Thanks all for your help.

John Richards

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"John Richards" <jrichar3[at]twcny.rr.com> wrote:

- quote -

That is correct. NY does not tax SS benefits. It also has
an exclusion for up to $20,000/year/person of pension
income. Also, governmental pensions from
federal/state/local governments are also fully excludible.
So, depending on where the $37,000 pension income comes
from, and how it is broken down per spouse, it is entirely
possible that there would be NO NY gross income in the
hypothetical provide. For example, if neither spouse's
pension was more than $20,000, then it could all be
excludible. There are some specific conditions to qualify
for the exclusion, but most pensions do.

--
Bruce E. Cobern, CPA
mailto:bec[at]pipeline.com

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John Richards wrote:

- quote -

You are correct, soc income is not subject to NYS tax and
most tax programs treat it correctly.

bill

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- quote -

<snip
- quote -

Yes, that is correct.

You should also note that NY does not tax any federal, NY
state, or NY local government pensions, including pensions
from the NYS Education Department. (line 25 subtraction).
It also excludes (on line 28) up to $20,000 of private
pension/IRA income for each taxpayer if they are over
59-1/2. So if the $37K of pension income in your example
were equally split between the husband and wife, they would
end up with NO gross NY income. And after all the
subtractions, there is a $14,600 standard deduction for MFJ.
The result is that many retired couples pay no NYS income
tax at all.

--
Don EA in Upstate NY

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John Richards wrote:

- quote -

The past 20 years is ancient history. I would find the
geometric increase in the factor for only the last five
years. This is what I use in my spreadsheet which goes to
age 99.

Specifically; take the index five years ago, divide that
into this year's index (actually take a 60 month spread),
which gives you the total increase; divide by five, and
then apply that to..... well, you get the idea. In short,
a 3% average geometric increase works out to maybe ...
about.. approximately... 2.72% per year.

ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA
Sun 20 Mar 2005

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"John Richards" <jrichar3[at]twcny.rr.com> wrote:

snip

- quote -

Ask in soc.retirement. There is a lot of blarney there, but
there are also knowledgeable members.

There was a change in how CPI is computed a few years ago,
due to criticism that the old method of computation (an
arithmetic average) overstated inflation. The new method
uses the geometric mean. The result is a reduction in the
estimated rate of inflation.

Jim

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I am retired but won't start collecting my SS benefits for a
couple years. I'm trying to project my future net income so
am trying to make sense of the tax treatment of future SS
income on the Fed 1040 and the NY IT-201.

Given a hypothetical situation where the only income for a
married couple filing jointly is combined pensions of
$37,000 (all fully taxable) and combined SS of $20,000,
using the "Social Security Benefits Worksheet", I calculate
taxable SS of $8,550 and the total taxable income would be
$45,550 ($37,000 + $8,550) on the Fed 1040.

For the NY IT-201, the taxable SS is brought over from the
Fed ($8,550) to line 14 on the IT-201 to be included in the
amount on line 18. The taxable SS is then subtracted out on
line 26. I have to conclude that the SS benefits, no matter
how much, are not subject to NY State income tax. Is this
correct?

Though this question is not about taxes, I thought someone
might be able to comment. I found page
http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm which shows the
history of cost of living adjustments to SS benefits. I
also found
http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/d...c/hist1913.cfm
which shows the CPI from 1913 to present. I was surprised
to find that the SS COLA tracked the CPI pretty closely at
an average of about 3% per year for the past 20 years. I
assume then that if this trend continues that my SS benefits
will keep pace with the CPI. Am I missing something?

Thanks
John

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