Retirement tax questions

HAH!!!!  That forms page is Perfect!!  It tells me Exactly what is going on!!

Now I see what I was confused about: I had read the rules as "all of social security plus half of other income", but it is "half of social security plus all of other income", which is an utterly different beast, in our case!!

So the taxable SS benefits ended up being essentially inconsequential...

 

Thank you very much!!