{"id":527989,"date":"2026-03-17T02:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T02:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527989\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T02:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T02:54:08","slug":"mckee-proposes-eliminating-rhode-island-tax-on-social-security-for-early-retirees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527989\/","title":{"rendered":"McKee proposes eliminating Rhode Island tax on Social Security for early retirees"},"content":{"rendered":"

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) \u2014 Gov. Dan McKee is pushing a plan to eliminate the state tax on Social Security benefits for people who retire before age 67. The proposal would phase out the tax over the next three years.<\/p>\n

McKee promoted the plan Monday at a senior center in Newport, saying it would help retirees keep more of their benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to eliminate the tax on Social Security. That is a really good move for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gov. Dan McKee spoke at a press conference proposing eliminating the tax on Social Security on Monday, March 16, 2026. (WJAR)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Currently, Rhode Islanders who collect Social Security before age 67 pay a state tax on their benefits. Early retirees can be taxed between 3.75% and about 6%, depending on their income and if they qualify for an exemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly it would help with bills more than anything because everything is going up exponentially,\u201d Rhode Island retiree Anna Barbieri said.<\/p>\n

Rhode Island is one of eight states that tax Social Security for at least some beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Catherine Taylor with AARP Rhode Island says the tax could push retirees to move to other states that don\u2019t tax Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf folks are going to move in order to keep a few hundred dollars in their pocket, then we lose so much by not having those folks here,\u201d Taylor told NBC10 in an interview.<\/p>\n

Taylor also pointed to an AARP poll that found 89% of Rhode Islanders support eliminating the tax.<\/p>\n

McKee’s office said 9,200 early retirees would be fully exempt from the tax in the first year.<\/p>\n

“It’s a $40 to 50 million dollar item in our budget over a few years,” he said. “But we can phase that in a way that we can absorb that inside of our budget.”<\/p>\n

However, University of New Haven professor of practice Brian Marks said the state would still need to make up for the lost revenue.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A pile of money being printed. (FILE)<\/p>\n

\u201cOne cannot ignore the fact that there\u2019s going to be a revenue decline to cover spending for the state of Rhode Island,\u201d Marks said.<\/p>\n

The budget still needs to pass in the Rhode Island General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Rhode Island House Republicans say they support, \u201cany effort to reduce the tax burden on Rhode Islanders, including eliminating the state income tax on Social Security benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) \u2014 Gov. Dan McKee is pushing a plan to eliminate the state tax on Social…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":["post-527989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}