{"id":324004,"date":"2025-11-29T22:08:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/investing\/senior-deduction-not-standard-deduction-oblivious-investor\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T22:08:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:08:56","slug":"senior-deduction-not-standard-deduction-oblivious-investor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=324004","title":{"rendered":"Senior Deduction, NOT Standard Deduction \u2014 Oblivious Investor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>After last week\u2019s article covering the <a href=\"https:\/\/obliviousinvestor.com\/2026-tax-brackets\/\">2026 tax brackets, standard deduction, retirement account limits, and HSA limits<\/a>, a bunch of emails came in asking about the \u201cnew senior standard deduction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no such thing.<\/p>\n<p>There is a new \u201csenior deduction\u201d for people age 65+ for years 2025-2028. But that deduction is entirely unrelated to the standard deduction. They\u2019re separate sections in the Internal Revenue Code (senior deduction is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/26\/151#d_5_C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a7 151(d)(5)(C)<\/a>, while the standard deduction is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/26\/63#c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a7 63(c)<\/a>); they have separate math, separate rules, etc.<\/p>\n<p>This is important for the sake of understanding what you\u2019re reading. It means that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If an article is discussing the senior deduction, it is by definition not referring to the standard deduction.<\/li>\n<li>If an article is discussing the standard deduction, it is by definition not referring to the senior deduction.<\/li>\n<li>And if an article is discussing the \u201csenior standard deduction,\u201d the author by definition does not know what they\u2019re talking about.*<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And in terms of how your taxes work, the distinction is critical for multiple reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, the standard deduction itself has a \u201cit\u2019s slightly larger if you\u2019re 65 or over (or blind)\u201d component. It has functioned that way for many years. It still functions that way for 2025. And it will still function that way for 2026 and beyond. That\u2019s not changing at all. And the standard deduction amount is only based on your filing status, age, and blind\/not-blind status. It does not phase out based on your income. In contrast, the new senior deduction has nothing whatsoever to do with your vision, and it <em>does<\/em> phase out based on your income.<\/p>\n<p>The second reason the distinction is important is that, because the new senior deduction is <em>not<\/em> part of the standard deduction, you can claim it in years in which you itemize (i.e., you can use it even if you aren\u2019t using the standard deduction at all that year).<\/p>\n<p>As far as inflation adjustments, unlike the standard deduction, the senior deduction amount ($6,000 per qualifying person) as well as the income phaseout ranges ($75,000 \u2013 $175,000 if single and $150,000 \u2013 $250,000 if married filing jointly) are not inflation-indexed. In other words, the dollar amounts will be the same for 2026-2028 as they are for 2025.<\/p>\n<p>*In fairness to the writers, many of the articles about the new deduction were written before the actual text of the law was made public. In other words, they were written at a time when\u00a0<em>none\u00a0of us<\/em> knew what we were talking about, so everything was just based on hearsay. (If you want to get an idea of how reliable such things are, think back to the children\u2019s game of telephone. Now imagine you\u2019re playing that \u2014 but with tax law.) Now that we have the actual law to reference, we know that the standard deduction and temporary senior deduction are simply separate things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"display: inline;\"> &#8220;Very easy to read and is a perfect introduction for learning how to do your own taxes. Mike Piper does an excellent job of demystifying complex tax sections and he presents them in an enjoyable and easy to understand way. Highly recommended!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After last week\u2019s article covering the 2026 tax brackets, standard deduction, retirement account limits, and HSA limits, a bunch of emails came in asking about the \u201cnew senior standard deduction.\u201d There\u2019s no such thing. There is a new \u201csenior deduction\u201d for people age 65+ for years 2025-2028. But that deduction is entirely unrelated to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[11095,13177,14955,4679,1696],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-324004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investing","tag-deduction","tag-investor","tag-oblivious","tag-senior","tag-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Senior Deduction, NOT Standard Deduction \u2014 Oblivious Investor - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=324004\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Senior Deduction, NOT Standard Deduction \u2014 Oblivious Investor - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After last week\u2019s article covering the 2026 tax brackets, standard deduction, retirement account limits, and HSA limits, a bunch of emails came in asking about the \u201cnew senior standard deduction.\u201d There\u2019s no such thing. 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