Does Kansas tax Social Security benefits?

No. Since tax year 2024, Social Security benefits are fully exempt from Kansas income tax at every income level.

What was the old Kansas rule?

Before 2024, benefits were exempt only if federal AGI was $75,000 or less — a cliff where crossing the line by one dollar made all benefits taxable.

Does the repeal change my federal tax?

No. Kansas’s exemption is state-only. Federally, up to 85% of benefits can still be taxable once provisional income exceeds $34,000 (single) or $44,000 (married filing jointly), with the first tier starting at $25,000 and $32,000.

Kansas (KS) • 2026 Tax Year

Does Kansas Tax Social Security?

Kansas stopped taxing Social Security in 2024: a mid-2024 law exempted all benefits retroactively to the start of tax year 2024, replacing the old $75,000 AGI cliff.

State Tax Rate

No SS tax (repealed 2024)

Status

100% exempt since tax year 2024

What Kansas's exemption does and doesn't cover

Scope of the exemption

Since tax year 2024, 100% of Social Security benefits are exempt from Kansas income tax regardless of age or income.
The old $75,000 federal AGI cliff is gone entirely — there is no longer any Kansas income threshold that changes how benefits are treated.
The exemption is state-only. Up to 85% of benefits remain federally taxable once provisional income passes $25,000 (single) or $32,000 (married filing jointly).

Key facts about Kansas and Social Security

Kansas’s 2024 tax law exempted 100% of Social Security benefits effective tax year 2024.

It replaced one of the harshest rules in the country — a $75,000 AGI cliff where $1 of extra income made ALL benefits taxable.

Many older articles still list Kansas as a taxing state; that has been wrong since 2024.

Because the old rule was a cliff rather than a phase-out, the repeal removed an unusually sharp planning constraint — Kansas retirees near $75,000 previously faced an all-or-nothing decision on every dollar of extra income.

Expert Strategy

Tax-smart strategy for Kansas residents

Kansas removed the single sharpest state-level trap in Social Security planning. Under the old $75,000 cliff, one extra dollar of AGI made every dollar of benefits taxable, so Roth conversions and capital gains had to be managed to the dollar. That constraint is gone: you can now convert, harvest gains, or take a large distribution without any Kansas consequence for your benefits. What remains is the federal calculation, which is a phase-in rather than a cliff — meaning the optimization shifts from defending a single threshold to sequencing withdrawals across years. If your plan was built around the old Kansas cliff, it is almost certainly leaving room on the table now.

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