 And how does Social Security figure into this? Say you're heavily earning and you plan to. A lot of people are now working past 70s just because they love it so much. But you max out, so you've got to start collecting Social Security. That complicates the tax picture because of the income it gives you. And, of course, for some weird reason, even though you paid for it with taxes in the first place, nowadays Social Security itself is taxable.