I used to have to deal with deduction/exemption rollbacks a few years ago (and they're back again now). There's also tuition credits and Roth contributions that get rolledback. These rollbacks also hit capital gains, so your CG tax might not be a simple 15%.
One strategy that I used was once you were over the "hump" in a given year, go ahead and load up on taxes up to the top of the bracket. So in most years you might try to stay below the rollback level, and in others you might go ahead and go way over.
With SS taxes, that might mean take a large tIRA or Roth conversion hit once every three years or so and minimize income the other two years so that your SS is not taxed. That will minimize the amount of your income that falls within the taxable SS range.
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