Social Security & Tax Classes in Southern California
By the RLF Education Team, Retirement Literacy Foundation · Updated
The 2026 numbers on one page.
Thresholds, IRMAA brackets, RMD ages and the senior deduction, all on one sheet, free by email.
Free. Educational follow-up by email. We never sell your information.
Plain-English classes for retirees and near-retirees across Los Angeles, Pasadena, Orange County and the Inland Empire. Taught by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Nothing is sold.
Free · one page · no cost, ever
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You’re reading “Free Social Security & Tax Workshops in Southern California”. We’ll email you our plain-English guide to Social Security, covering the taxable-benefit thresholds, the survivor-benefit trap and the claiming-age math, plus an invite to the next free class. Free public education from a 501(c)(3); there is nothing to buy.
The Retirement Literacy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 41-5062266).
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Next session
Date to be announced
Online on Zoom or in person at a Southern California library or community center. Free.
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Where we teach
We run free retirement education across the greater Los Angeles area and Southern California.
Los AngelesPasadenaSan Gabriel ValleyOrange CountyLong BeachSouth BayInland EmpireRiversideYorba LindaIrvineCoronaCoachella Valley
Sessions are held online and, when scheduled, in community centers and public libraries. Admission is always free.
What we cover
Why up to 85% of your Social Security can become taxable, and the income line that triggers it
How one dollar over an IRMAA threshold raises your Medicare premium for a full year
What California does and doesn't tax in retirement
What the 10-year rule costs the people who inherit your IRA
The withdrawal order that keeps more of your own money
California doesn’t tax your Social Security. The IRS still does.
This is the single most common misunderstanding we hear in Southern California. California is one of the states that does not tax Social Security benefits at the state level. Not a dollar. Retirees hear that and reasonably assume their benefit is tax-free.
It isn’t. The federal government taxes Social Security on a completely separate set of rules, and those rules don’t care which state you live in. What decides it is provisional income: your adjusted gross income, plus any tax-exempt interest, plus half of your Social Security benefit.
Filing status
None taxable
Up to 50% taxable
Up to 85% taxable
Single
Under $25,000
$25,000 to $34,000
Over $34,000
Married filing jointly
Under $32,000
$32,000 to $44,000
Over $44,000
Those thresholds were written in 1983 and have never been adjusted for inflation. That is not an oversight anyone plans to fix. It means each year a little more of the retired population crosses them, and a benefit that was designed to be tax-free for most people is now partly taxable for a large share of ordinary retirees.
Why this lands harder in Southern California
Two things make the math sharper here than almost anywhere else in the country.
Home equity. A house bought in Orange County, the San Gabriel Valley or the South Bay decades ago may carry an enormous unrealized gain. The federal exclusion on a primary residence is $250,000 for a single filer and $500,000 for a married couple. That is generous in most of the country, and routinely not enough here. The gain above that exclusion is capital gain, and capital gain lands in the same income figure that decides how much of your Social Security is taxable.
The two-year Medicare lookback. Your 2026 Medicare premium is not set by your 2026 income. It is set by your 2024 tax return. So a house sold in 2024, a large Roth conversion in 2024, or a one-time capital gain in 2024 can raise your Medicare premium in 2026, two years after the money is gone and long after most people stop connecting the two events.
For 2026, the first IRMAA threshold sits at $109,000 of 2024 MAGI for a single filer and $218,000 for a couple filing jointly. It is a cliff, not a ramp: one dollar over the line moves you to the next tier for the entire year, for both Part B and Part D.
Put those together and a Southern California retiree can sell a home once, in a single year, and pay for it three separate ways: capital gains tax that year, a larger share of Social Security taxed that year, and a higher Medicare premium two years later.
What you can actually do about it
Most of what we teach is about timing, because timing is the part still within your control. The order you withdraw from taxable, tax-deferred and Roth accounts changes your provisional income. Which year you realize a large gain changes which year IRMAA reacts. Whether a Roth conversion happens before or after you enroll in Medicare changes what it costs.
None of that requires buying anything. It requires knowing where the lines are before you cross one, which is difficult to do after the fact and straightforward to do in advance.
If a life-changing event (retirement, the death of a spouse, the loss of a pension) caused the income spike, IRMAA can also be appealed using Form SSA-44. Very few people know that form exists.
Sources, checked October 10, 2026. Taxable Social Security thresholds: IRS Publication 915. Home sale exclusion of $250,000 single and $500,000 joint: IRS Topic 701. 2026 Medicare surcharge lines ($109,000 single, $218,000 joint, based on the 2024 return): CMS, 2026.
Why we're free
Retirement Literacy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 41-5062266. We are funded as an educational organization. We do not sell financial products, we do not receive commissions, and no one will pitch you anything at a workshop or afterward.
If that sounds unusual, it is. It's also the whole point. You cannot get straight answers about retirement taxes from someone whose income depends on which answer you pick.
Retirement Literacy Foundation · 501(c)(3) · EIN 41-5062266 Free education. No products. No commissions.
These numbers change every year
The IRMAA brackets, the standard deduction and the senior deduction are all adjusted annually, and the
2027 figures are published late in 2026. The one exception is the Social Security taxation thresholds,
which have not moved since 1983 and are not expected to.
We send one short email when the new numbers are announced. No campaign and no sequence, just one email
when there is something worth knowing.
Free, from a 501(c)(3). Unsubscribe any time.
Hans Goldstein, EA
Founder & Executive Director · Retirement Literacy Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit Admitted to practice before the IRS
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