Letters: Ideas for funding Social Security
Fixing Social Security Credit: Illustration by William L. Brown
Thanks for your "Balancing Act" series. On Social Security [Editorial, Nov. 15], education and explanations are necessary.
Here is a suggested fix. Apply Social Security and Medicare tax to Subchapter S corporation dividends. When corporations were permitted to file tax returns as partnerships to eliminate double taxation (known as a Subchapter S corporations), they were not required to pay Social Security or Medicare taxes on Sub S dividends.
A business owner decides how much of the income to take as salary, on which Social Security must be paid, and how much is taken as a dividend. A partnership does not have that choice and must pay Social Security and Medicare on all of its income up to the maximums mandated.
The IRS does not have the ability to audit all Sub S corporations to determine if the salary taken is proper or too small. Matching Sub S rules to the partnership requirements would fix this injustice and bring in billions to the Social Security fund.
Rony Kessler, Franklin Square
Editor's note: The writer is an accountant and a member of the West Hempstead school board.
There is no need to raise the retirement age or cut the cost of living adjustment to bring Social Security into balance. There's a single remedy: completely ending the cap on high income earners, and not stopping at $220,000, as you suggest.
Let's begin to address the enormous inequities that have infected our nation.
Martin Melkonian, Hempstead
Editor's note: The writer is an economics professor at Hofstra University.
Your editorial makes two references to Social Security recipients either not having children, or having too few children to support them. Having children is irrelevant to the program. All current workers are paying for current recipients, whether they are their parents or not.
While there are any number of options to raising the payroll deduction cap, your proposal would seem to be among the least progressive in that the truly wealthy still avoid paying anything on the majority of their income.
Stephen Martin, Wading River
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
