Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Federal tax rules do not leave much room for improvisation, and 2026 is packed with filing and payment cutoffs that can quietly trigger penalties if you miss them. The core date is the April deadline for 2025 returns, but quarterly estimated payments, business forms, and disaster extensions create a full calendar of obligations. I will…
The fight over who gets to own tax season in the United States is no longer just about software features or slick ads. The IRS is trying to normalize truly free filing, while TurboTax and its parent Intuit are working just as hard to keep paid products at the center of the experience. Whether free…
Tax season is always a stress test for household budgets, but the 2026 filing season for 2025 returns is shaping up to be unusually fraught. A sweeping new tax law, agency layoffs, and technology changes are converging in ways that lawmakers say could slow the money that millions of families count on each spring. I…
Millions of retirees are about to get a rare piece of good news from the tax code. A new federal deduction worth up to $6,000 per eligible taxpayer is designed to shrink how much of their Social Security benefits ever gets taxed, and the break is locked in through 2028. For seniors who live on…
As the calendar flips, the New Year’s tax deadline is colliding with a fragile moment for gold, silver, and the Dow, turning routine portfolio housekeeping into a potential market shock. Investors racing to lock in losses or gains before the Internal Revenue Service cutoff could unleash a wave of selling that hits everything from blue…
Working Americans are being told to brace for an unusually big cash bump, with federal tax changes and special deposits combining into refunds that could reach roughly $2,000 per household. That kind of money can plug holes in a strained budget or jump‑start longer term goals, but it will not stretch far if it disappears…
Older taxpayers now have access to some of the most generous standard deduction rules on record, and the stakes are high for anyone trying to stretch retirement income. The federal tax code offers an extra deduction once you reach age 65, and recent law changes have layered on a new “senior bonus” that can sharply…
A federal judge has upheld a Trump-era surcharge on certain H-1B visa petitions that can push the total government bill for a single worker toward $100,000, cementing one of the most aggressive cost barriers ever imposed on skilled immigration. The ruling keeps in place a policy that sharply distinguishes between employers recruiting talent from abroad…
California’s most powerful healthcare union is betting that voters are ready to single out a tiny group of ultra-wealthy residents and send a shockwave through the tax code. Its proposed “billionaire tax” would hit just 255 people but aims to raise roughly $100 billion for health care and schools, turning the state into a test…
Sam Bankman-Fried went to prison as the face of a multibillion-dollar crypto collapse and emerged with a strangely narrow fixation: teaching other inmates how to talk to judges and prosecutors. Instead of retreating into the background, he has turned his days into a nonstop clinic on motions, plea deals, and sentencing guidelines. His new identity…