Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The Treasury Department has taken the extraordinary step of cutting off one of Washington’s most entrenched contractors after a former employee leaked private tax data for President Donald Trump and other ultra-wealthy Americans. By terminating every agreement with Booz Allen Hamilton, officials are signaling that a single breach inside the Internal Revenue Service can now…
New rules for the 2026 filing season are quietly tilting the tax code in favor of older Americans, but most of the benefits will only show up if seniors know where to look. Between richer deductions, targeted breaks on retirement income and smarter ways to handle medical and charitable costs, it is realistic for a…
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has ordered a nationwide cleanup of its rental assistance rolls after an internal review flagged thousands of ineligible or fictitious tenants, including people who are dead or lack required documentation. The agency has given local housing authorities and private landlords just 30 days to scrub their files, a…
Millions of Americans are heading into tax season with something unusual on the horizon: the prospect of meaningfully larger refunds driven by a sweeping set of new IRS rules and federal tax law changes. The combination of fresh deductions, higher standard write offs and updated brackets is poised to shrink taxable income for a wide…
California’s richest residents have always had reasons to eye the exits, from high income-tax rates to a cost of living that makes even a Gulfstream feel modest. What is new is the intensity of the scrutiny that greets anyone who claims to have left, just as the state lines up a one-time levy on fortunes…
For millions of households, the dog on the couch or the cat on the keyboard is as central to family life as any child. Yet when tax season arrives, that emotional reality collides with a tax code that treats animals very differently from human relatives. The idea of listing a pet as a dependent is…
Tax pros are bracing for something unusual in 2026: a filing season where many households discover that the government owes them far more than they expected. After years of modest or shrinking refunds, a mix of new law, IRS rule changes, and paycheck withholding quirks is setting the stage for a noticeable jump in money…
The ultra-wealthy do not just earn more than the typical American, they also structure their money so that the tax code treats them far more gently. I see the same pattern across expert analyses and IRS data: the richest households lean on a small set of complex rules that most wage earners never use. Here…
The new 1% federal excise tax on certain cash and money transfers starting in 2026 is not a nuisance fee you can shrug off. For households that move money across borders, run cash-heavy businesses, or help family overseas, ignoring the rules can quietly drain savings and trigger penalties on top of the tax itself. If…
President Donald Trump is selling a new auto tax break as a windfall for drivers, with headlines touting a $10,000 perk for car owners. The reality is more complicated: the benefit is real, but only a narrow slice of buyers with large loans and hefty interest bills will ever see the full amount. For many…