MetroNews Talkline: AARP WV State Director Gaylene Miller, Jan. 12, 2024

one of the uh issues that really bothers a lot of West Virginia is the fact that if you're in a certain income bracket in West Virginia and you're on Social Security that you're paying a state income tax on your social security benefit now if you are a single Filer and you earn $50,000 a year or less you don't pay that state tax on your Social Security if you're a joint f on Social Security and you earn less than $100,000 you don't pay that state tax on social security but if you are uh above those income levels then you're paying a state tax on social security and this has been an issue with seniors in West Virginia for a long time and Governor Jim Justice proposed in his State of the State address and this will be part of his legislative agenda to exclude all Social Security benefits from state in income tax gayen Miller is the president of AARP West Virginia and joins us on Metro News talkline Gay gayen good morning thanks for joining us I know this has been an issue for your organization for a lot of years what did you think when you heard the governor proposed that well we were um surprised and delighted uh frankly that he U offered the proposal for the legislature's consideration um and I will tell you that as you have said this is the number one issue among our members that we hear from them that they feel we should uh exert our influence on the legislature to eliminate fully eliminate the tax on social security why do you think this is the biggest issue one of the biggest issues with your members well I I believe that they feel like they have paid on those ta you know they've paid that tax um and it's an hard-earned benefit it's something that they've earned and they should get to keep um you know to help pay their bills and cover expenses uh gayen Miller's with us the president of AARP West Virginia and gayen West Virginia is one of the few remaining states that in one form still taxes has state taxes on Social Security benefits isn't that correct that is correct there are 12 states that tax some or all of the Social Security benefits um and you know good to know that in 2024 two of those States Missouri and Nebraska are ending the taxation on those benefits and I hope we can add West Virginia to the list gayen what have you heard from Members if anything about this so far because the governor can propose but the legislature disposes what do you think or what have you heard is the uh feedback from legislators if anything so uh you know I think there is a great deal of interest um among the legislature uh the the devil's in the details hop we haven't actually seen the proposal yet um but we you know we believe that it is going to be straightforward I know many members of the legislature have campaigned on this issue and want to see it happen um but you know time will tell we have 60 days to work the the proposal and U you know hopefully we'll get it across the finish line gayen from what the governor's office have said if it passes uh without any ific changes it would benefit more than 50,000 West Virginia seniors have you heard that number I had not heard that number um but I can tell you that there are close to half a million people in West Virginia who benefit from Social Security um and about 300,000 of them are the retirement benefits but let's not forget that there are folks who are on disability or on survivor benefits um that make up that almost half a million dollars and it's a it's a huge economic engine you know about eight almost eight 7.9 billion dollars of economic impact to the state and it's not going to be a loss for the state because these folks will use that money that goes back in their pockets that's theirs earned money um to purchase vehicles or appliances or to travel throughout the mountain state so it's going to come back to the state just in a different way and and I don't know whether this would impact and and I'm trying to think this through probably if you're on disability benefits you're below those income thresholds anyway I don't know that for certain but um I don't know whe that's likely that's likely yeah so but I don't know if that would yes impact uh Social Security I mean uh disability benefits if somebody happened to be above that threshold I don't know like you said you got to see the details I guess right yeah yep Devil's in the details always yeah always okay all right so gayen Miller who is president of ARP West Virginia gayen thanks for coming on it's good to talk to you thank you so much we will watch this closely I know this is will be something of Interest we we appreciate you having us on hop and uh see you next week at the capital see you at the capital uh in the interest of full disclosure AARP is a sponsor of our broadcast location at the state capital and also Tom hunter from AARP he had a good quote I saw a story about this in West Virginia watch and Tom said taxing Social Security under the purpose of Social Security he said this was a program that was designed to lift seniors out of poverty it wasn't a program that was designed to fund state governments so we believe this is a step in the right direction I think that's a really um really valuable bit of additional information there why does Social Security exist Social Security exists to uh help people when they retire in and people and and vast majority of people in West Virginia across the country do depend on Social Security some more than others and it is meant to it is designed to uh help those folks it is not designed to as Tom said it's not designed to fund to fund government and people as gayen said also that when you get Social Security what do you do with it well most what most West Virginia spend it because they have to because it's a big source of their income so there's going to be some benefit economic benefit to it uh anyway so right now in West Virginia if you're below $50,000 a year as a single $100,000 a year as joint you do not pay state taxes on Social Security the governor we we haven't seen a bill but the governor's proposal is to remove the state income tax requirement on all social security income benefit on all Social Security benefits