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CBO Scores BCRA, Leaders Postpone Vote.Most of the money that Social Security pays out to current beneficiaries comes from payroll taxes. According to the Social Security Trustees, the program received 5.1 billion in payroll taxes in 201Social Security also received an estimated .9 billion from the taxation of Social Security benefits, and .9 billion in interest was earned on special issue non-marketable bonds held by the trust fund last year..In addition, one new cosponsor Rep. William Lacy Clay signed on to the Social Security Fairness Act this week, bringing the total up to 167..Apply for Medicare "Extra Help": Medicare Extra Help is a program that helps to pay for Part D premiums, annual deductibles, and co-payments for your medications. You apply online using the Social Security Administration website. For more information see this pdf from the Social Security Administration..The 3.8% "Medicare" net investment tax has never been received by the Medicare Part A Trust Fund, but has wound up going straight into the U.S. General Fund. That means it could be appropriated for any government spending!.The twenty-nine member budget conference seemed to reach a standstill this week. Three weeks remain before the official December 13th deadline, but House and Senate appropriators requested a top-line spending number before November 22nd the start of the week-long Thanksgiving recess and the conferees failed to deliver..This, of course, keeps the costs of those drugs much higher than if a generic version were available..Unrealistic Cost-of-Living-Adjustments : COLAs are already inadequate: Seniors have lost almost one-third of their buying power since 2000, according to a recent TSCL study. In that period, COLAs increased just 31 percent, while typical senior expenses jumped 73 percent, more than twice as fast. There is talk of using a "chained" CPI to calculate COLAs. But the spending patterns assumed by the "chained" CPI don't apply as well to seniors, who spend a larger percentage of their income on necessities that aren't as conducive to substitution. Billed as a mere "technical correction," a TSCL analysis shows that using a "chained" CPI to calculate COLAs would in fact slash payments by more than ,000 over a 25-year retirement. Read more here and here..This late into 2018, one way to prevent a penalty is to pay an estimated, or additional payment that brings your estimated tax payments to least 100 percent of your prior year tax liability, or 110 percent of the prior year liability, if you believe you will have higher income in 201If you think you may have underpaid during the year, there's still time to make an estimated payment by January 15th, 2019 to stop penalties from accruing. To prevent the same problem next year, consider adjusting withholding taxes from pension or annuities, as well as withdrawals from retirement accounts.