New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Will you pay taxes on Social Security?
After a lifetime of hard work and paying into the Social Security system, once you retire you can relax and enjoy a monthly check from the federal government for life, right? Well, yes, but you’ll probably have to pay taxes on some of your Social Security benefits.
Many people are surprised to find this out, even though the federal government has imposed a tax on these benefits since 1983. Some people pay no taxes, others pay up to 85 percent, depending on your income.
As with most things federal, it’s complicated. If your income falls below $25,000 for an individual or $32,000 for a married couple filing jointly, you will not owe taxes on your benefits.
You’ll pay tax on up to 50 percent of your benefit total if your income falls between $25,000 and $34,000 for an individual or $32,000 and $44,000 for a married couple filing jointly. You’ll pay tax on up to 85 percent of your benefits if your income exceeds $34,000 for individuals or $44,000 for couples.
You may wonder how this is justified, since you already paid taxes on the money that you paid into the system. Briefly,
Views in democratic countries have hardened after the coronavirus outbreak was first discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, and a majority of respondents said China handled the outbreak poorly. Many criticized China for obfuscating early reports of COVID-19.
China has been eager to reshape the narrative, calling the virus a common challenge facing humanity, and even questioning its origin. Earlier, as the pandemic spread around the world, it sent medical teams and supplies to affected countries. More recently, it has signed agreements with developing nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines to provide priority
access to one of its vaccine candidates and offered a $1 billion loan to countries in Latin America.
What remains to be seen is how China will engage with the alliance, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, the vice chair of the Board of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, which is also involved in leading COVAX. Most countries are entering COVAX to try to get access to vaccines that aren’t being manufactured domestically, she said.
China could be trying to ensure that the vaccines it is developing find a global platform. “For China it could be across the spectrum. To have their vaccines participate in the provision of vaccines (to other countries), and for access to vaccines,” said Kang, who is also a microbiologist at the Christian
Medical College in the Indian city of Vellore.
Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, for example, recently said it wants to provide its vaccine to the world, including the U.S. and countries in Europe with stringent regulations that have prevented previous Chinese vaccines from being sold.
COVAX plans to buy 2 billion doses of a vaccine by the end of 2021, although it remains unknown whether the successful vaccine will require one or two doses.
To date, China has not yet published any latestage information about any of its vaccine candidates, despite starting to use some more broadly in targeted populations. Without that data, it is unclear how safe and effective any of the experimental Chinese vaccines are.